The Last Scion
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Kurt is the Last Scion - the last of a magical bloodline destined to protect to world in an ultimate battle between good and evil. He must learn to hone his skills and strengthen his powers, and to do so, he must remain pure. It's a difficult when he's in love with his protector, Sebastian. Can Kurt keep love when he knows he he has to sacrifice everything he is to save the world?
1. The Last Scion

**A/N:** _This actually starts out when Kurt and Sebastian are adults, but as you read on it starts back when they are teenagers in the temple. If Kurt seems different as an adult than he does when he's a teenager, that will all be explained in later one-shots. Also, this will all eventually be turned in to a book-length fic. Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)_

"Kuuurrrrtttt," Sebastian's voice sang up to him from somewhere in the kitchen downstairs. Kurt smiled as he continued to fold the laundry in the master bedroom.

"Sebastian," Kurt called down without stopping his task. "I thought you were up here taking a nap."

"No, I couldn't sleep," Sebastian whined. "Come down here so we can make out."

Kurt rolled his eyes. He learned early on in their partnership that Sebastian was a constant, incurable flirt, though as more time went by Kurt started to wonder if there was something more behind the flirting. Kurt wanted there to be. God, did he want there to be, but he knew he shouldn't get his hopes up.

Kurt and Sebastian had been raised together in the same order, and had been on this mission together for over ten years. From day one, Sebastian never acted like a stereotypical priest. He always had some sort of innuendo or remark about Kurt, was never shy about openly ogling Kurt's body, talking endlessly about dreams he had about he and Kurt together intimately. Sebastian always said that when their mission was over he would make an honest man of Kurt, and it was a nice thing to daydream about. But Kurt couldn't forget – he was the last Scion. His mission was one of sacrifice. He didn't know what exactly he was expected to do, or what would happen to him afterward. What he did know is he had never met another Scion.

No one in the order even talked to Kurt about the future, about what his options were going to be when all was said and done. Kurt had begun to suspect that whatever happened at the end of their mission, he would not survive. It was a struggle as well as a journey, especially with Sebastian Smythe as his protector. For his part, Kurt had to remain pure, completely untouched for his mission to be successful. That didn't keep him from daydreaming about being naked, wrapped in the arms of his protector; spending long, lazy days simply worshipping each other.

It wasn't the same for the priests. In order for them to keep their mind focused on their jobs, they were required one moment of sexual intimacy. There was a big ceremony – a feast, music, the whole nine yards. Kurt wouldn't know. The idea of watching Sebastian making love to someone else broke his heart too much to attend. Whatever the actual purpose of the ceremony, whatever it was supposed to accomplish, it didn't seem to work on Sebastian. In fact, it seemed to make Sebastian crave sex more.

At least Sebastian was loyal. He only had eyes for Kurt.

"Come on, Kurt," Sebastian sang, his voice becoming something different; melodic and smooth with a hint of compulsion to it, "come down here and let me lick you. I promise I won't let you cum."

Kurt swallowed hard, dropping the shirt he was folding on the bed. Sebastian's personality could often times be a headache, but Kurt just saw him as one of the many challenges he had to deal with during his journey. Sebastian made no secret of his desire for Kurt and his disdain for their mission, but he'd never said anything overtly sexual like that before.

"Sebastian", Kurt chided, his voice broken and sullen, "that's not funny. You know I want to…but I can't. Don't make this harder for me than it already is."

"Kurt," Sebastian taunted in that rough, seductive voice Kurt had only dreamt about but never heard before, "come down here and let me take care of you. I'll hold you in my arms, undress you slowly…"

Kurt walked out onto the second floor landing to hear Sebastian's voice better.

"You know you want me," Sebastian continued. "You want my lips on you…you want my hands on your skin…you want me to lay you open and have my way with you…"

Kurt followed that voice, step by step, hands gripping the railing until his knuckles turned white. Sebastian's voice had a strange, undeniable edge to it. It called to Kurt, pulled him, he was helpless against it. He reached the stairs, preparing to put a foot down on the first one when arms grabbed him – one hand clamping over his mouth and another around his waist, dragging him backward into one of the darkened bedrooms. Kurt heard the door lock and turned on his attacker, shocked and confused to be staring into the familiar green eyes of his priest.

"Seb—"

"Shh," Sebastian hushed quietly. "I felt him when he materialized. He's downstairs in the kitchen."

"Why didn't he just come upstairs then?" Kurt asked, backing away from the bedroom door.

"I don't know," Sebastian admitted. "Maybe with the layers of prayers and protection spells he can't."

_Creak._

Both men turned at the sound of footsteps slowly climbing up the stairs.

"Well, fuck," Sebastian sighed. He grabbed a bottle of holy water and doused the floor right in front of the door. As an extra measure, he poured mounds of white salt in a line at the doorway, a trick he learned from the white witches.

"Get up on the bed," Sebastian commanded, and Kurt complied, though climbing up onto the bed with a half-dressed Sebastian wasn't helping the state of his lingering arousal.

_Creak._

_Creak._

"Kurt," the fake Sebastian's voice called out, and now that Kurt could hear it closer, more clearly, he felt that the veiled edge to it was dark, demonic.

Kurt wrapped his arms around his chest tightly, and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body, ready to do anything to protect him.

The footsteps stopped in front of the door.

"Kuuuurrrtttt…come out and pla-ay…"

A black fog seeped in beneath the closed door, and from between the wood slats of the hardwood floor, all sorts of decomposers and insects appeared: centipedes, millipedes, spiders, roaches, darkling beetles clicking their thick glossy exoskeletons. Kurt shivered and curled in on himself, and Sebastian's eyes burned with hate. The fog reached the line of salt and holy water and they could hear an audible 'hisssss' fill the room, along with a groan of pain.

"Kurt," the voice morphed into something cruel, "the priest won't be around to protect you forever. I _will_ have you."

The black fog seeped out from beneath the door and filtered away, the numerous insects retreating back beneath the boards and disappearing into the dark.

Sebastian held tight to Kurt's trembling body.

"We'll have to leave now?" Kurt asked sadly. Sebastian wanted to curse out loud, lash out and punch something hard. They'd managed to stay in one place for almost a year this time, and Kurt loved this little house. For the first time in years Kurt had allowed himself to feel settled, safe. Sebastian hated having the rug pulled out from under him.

"Yes," Sebastian answered simply. "But don't worry. We'll find another house just like this one. I promise."

Kurt nodded and fell painfully still and silent.

"Don't listen to him, Kurt," Sebastian soothed. "I'll be here as long as you need me."

"As long as I need you?" Kurt whispered.

Sebastian placed a kiss into Kurt's hair. He thought of all the things the demon had said. The voice wasn't his, but the words were. Wanting to lay with Kurt, wanting to undress him, to touch him – all of those things came straight from the dream Sebastian was having when the demon appeared. He wanted Kurt. He was determined to find a way for them.

"I'm yours, Scion," Sebastian whispered with another chaste kiss. "My life, my body, my heart, my soul, will always be yours."

They laid together quietly in the dark, letting the time drip by while Sebastian made silent plans to keep Kurt safe.


	2. Sebastian and The Last Scion

**A/N:** _This chapter details 'the ceremony' and how Sebastian was chosen to be Kurt's protector. Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)_

Kurt fidgeted, watching through narrow eyelids as Sebastian adjusted the collar of his ceremonial robe.

"If you're going to be naked anyway, why do they make you dress up?" Kurt groused. Sebastian turned to peek over his shoulder with a smirk, more sheepish than condescending.

"Actually, I'm not wearing anything beneath the robe," he commented.

_'Oh,'_ Kurt mouthed, turning his back on his friend.

"Look," Sebastian came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his chest, trying hard not to press his body against Kurt's and make him any more uncomfortable. "This is just a technicality. It doesn't mean anything. It will be over and done with, and then I'll come back here and we can watch a movie or something."

"Can we watch _Moulin Rouge_?" Kurt asked quietly. Sebastian smiled.

"Whatever you want, Scion."

Kurt's head popped up.

"Why do you call me that now?" Kurt asked. He had noticed more and more that his friend referred to him more by his title than his name.

"The priests want us to," Sebastian said, hooking his chin over Kurt's shoulder.

"Well, I don't want you to." Kurt turned in Sebastian's arms and looked deep into his emerald green eyes. "We're here alone. I'm not Scion here. I'm just Kurt. So call me Kurt. Okay?"

Sebastian pecked a kiss to Kurt's forehead.

"Whatever you want, Kurt," Sebastian said. "Of course, I could just call you gorgeous. I think it suits you better."

Kurt smiled weakly, but he looked down the length of Sebastian's gaudy ceremonial robe and the smile fell.

"Don't," Kurt said. "Don't…just…call me Kurt."

Sebastian nodded. Three quick knocks on Sebastian's cell door interrupted their private moment.

"Come in," Sebastian sighed, turning to greet the man who would usher him away from Kurt and the one moment they would never get the chance to share.

"It's time, Sebastian," the elderly man said, his voice clipped and curt. It wasn't really a secret that Sebastian wasn't necessarily a favorite among the other priests, and it amused Sebastian to no end to use that to his advantage. "Have you properly prepared yourself?"

"Do you mean am I ready to go fuck some guy I don't know and will never see again?" Sebastian asked, not even trying to hide his bitterness. "Then the answer to that is yes, sir."

Shielded behind Sebastian's body, hidden from view, Kurt flinched.

"You know, I don't even see why they bother," the man sneered. "You are never going to become a protector for…"

Kurt stepped to the side, his eyes seething at the surly man who insulted his friend. The man's mouth dropped, his face going so pale it turned grey.

"Sc-scion," he stuttered, bowing low in front of Kurt. Kurt looked at Sebastian and rolled his eyes.

"Grumbald," Kurt acknowledged the man with a stunted nod. "You may leave us. I will be walking my friend to the temple."

Sebastian's face went pale as well, and he swallowed hard. They had discussed this. Kurt wanted nothing to do with the ceremony, wanted nothing to do with watching his best friend make love to someone else, especially with the unspoken feelings that seemed to swirl around them whenever they were together. In his heart, Sebastian knew Kurt loved him. Kurt never had any reason to doubt Sebastian's feelings. Sebastian told him every single day.

"But nothing," Kurt growled with a stomp of his foot and a hint of mounting tears in his voice. "Be gone, or I'll fuck him myself."

Sebastian chuckled once nervously, but Kurt might as well have threatened to kill the elderly priest, who looked close to vomiting at the thought of the chosen one, the last Scion, sullying himself with a common priest and destroying a mission that the order had been preparing millenia for.

"As you wish, Scion," the man replied, tripping over himself to back out of the small quarters, keeping his head bowed while simultaneously scowling at Sebastian. Sebastian raised a hand and waved.

Kurt sighed and fell back into his friend's arms when they were finally alone.

"You better watch that mouth, Sc…Kurt," Sebastian said, placing a small kiss in Kurt's hair. "They're going to wash it out."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see them try," Kurt said, his voice muffled by the multitude of material he hid his face in.

Sebastian wanted nothing more than to stay with Kurt forever, but he had responsibilities – they both did, and as ridiculous as this ceremony was, the faster he got it over with, the faster he returned to Kurt.

"Come on," Sebastian said, looping his arm around Kurt's, "walk with me."

Kurt nodded, brushing away a tiny tear with his fingertips. Another broke free to take its place, and Sebastian caught this one, bringing the drop to his lips and kissing it away. They walked in silence across the courtyard, arm in arm, to the temple lit with torches along the outside and a single line of priests awaiting their arrival. Most of the priests eyed the two of them suspiciously. Kurt and Sebastian had been raised together. They had been discovered at roughly the same time. But the two seemed to have no other friends among anyone else in the order save for Sebastian's mentor, Tellemband, who hated every day the vows and duties that would forever keep these young men apart. It was unavoidable. Kurt had a job to do, an important one, and if Tellemband had any say in the matter Sebastian would be right by his side.

Now it was just a matter of convincing everyone else.

Tellemband stepped forward, knowing Sebastian had no real supporters in the group gathered, and smiled as genuine a smile as he could muster.

"Are you ready, my son?" he asked Sebastian gently.

Sebastian took one last glance at Kurt and tried to look supportive, but the edges of his mouth quivered just a bit.

"Yes, sir," Sebastian said, and from what he could see, something in the depths of Kurt's blue eyes shattered.

Tellemband turned to Kurt with the same genuine smile.

"Scion," he said with a slight bow, "will you be…"

"No, I will not," Kurt said. He tried to pull his arm out of Sebastian's grasp but Sebastian held him, circling his arms around him and holding him tight. The other priests gasped that Sebastian would have the gall to manhandle the Scion so familiarly, but Tellemband simply shook his head.

Sebastian knew he shouldn't. He knew in many ways it was too, too cruel, but he couldn't leave Kurt with any doubts.

"It'll be you, Kurt," Sebastian whispered. "It doesn't matter who I'm with, it will always be you."

Kurt crumbled in Sebastian's arms, sobbing like a wounded animal. He wrenched free of Sebastian's embrace and ran into the dark. Sebastian hung his head. He heard the other priests murmur their disapproval.

"Too selfish…"

"Too connected…"

"…never be a protector…"

Tellemband put his hands on Sebastian's shoulders and led him past the glowers and glares of the other priests and into the temple.

"Don't you dare listen to them," he whispered into his young charge's ear. "There's more written into this prophecy then they'll ever understand because it is meant to be read with the heart, not the head, and I don't think they have any."

Tellemband led Sebastian down a dark hall that opened up into a large theater, almost like a coliseum, where other priests and acolytes of the order were gathered to bear witness to the ceremony. In the center of the theater, seated on an intricately woven rug, was a young man, older than Sebastian by a few years, already naked, beautiful if Sebastian was willing to admit it. But when he looked at the man with the come hither hazel eyes and the tanned skin, all he let himself see was Kurt – _his_ Kurt, sitting on a picnic blanket in the sun out in the courtyard. In his fantasy there is no divide, no duty, no responsibilities. Kurt isn't the Scion, and Sebastian isn't a priest. They're just men, together, in love, sharing a private moment, enjoying each other.

Sebastian let himself get lost to the fantasy, let himself believe that the arms reaching out to him were Kurt's. He dropped his robe, and the man on the blanket gasped. Sebastian approached him eagerly, and the man grinned like the cat that found the cream. The man rolled onto his stomach, already prepared. They had been told there would be no kissing. This was just sex, not intimacy. Sebastian settled down between the man's spread legs and with trembling hands guided his hard cock into the man's body.

"Kurt," he sighed, and the man's incredulous face snapped around to meet Sebastian's closed eyes.

"My name's not…"

Sebastian put a hand on the man's back between his shoulder blades and shoved his face firmly into the blanket. He didn't need that foreign voice destroying his carefully constructed fantasy.

"Kurt," Sebastian murmured, moving slowly, and at that point the man beneath him could care less what Sebastian called him. "My Kurt…"

Tellemband smiled at the sour men beside him.

"I told you," he said, beaming at the young man who continued to moan Kurt's name. "It has to be him."

"He's in love with the Scion?" a faceless voice said in disgust.

"He'll jeopardize the mission," another grumbled. "He'll put his own needs ahead of everything else."

"Never," Tellemband said, turning to the row of men. "He'll protect the Scion with his life, I'm sure of it."

Grumbald huffed.

"We'll see," he said, turning away from the scene before him and heading out of the temple.

Sebastian did up the buttons to his robe, not even sparing a glance to the sated man with the goofy smile reclining back on the blanket.

"You know, they say the priests and their courtesans can hang around and get to know each other a little better," the man entreated. "Did you want to…"

"I have somewhere I need to be," Sebastian said quickly, finishing the last of his buttons and turning around, walking headlong right into another priest.

"Are you going to see the Scion?" the man asked with a raised eyebrow.

"What does it matter to you?" Sebastian bit out angrily.

The man glared at Sebastian, but then his lips twisted into a vicious grin.

"Well, I guess it's best that you spend as much time with him as you can," the priest said with a touch of grim humor. "He has a mission to begin, so he probably won't be around much longer."

Sebastian's whole body went cold.

_Kurt_ wouldn't be around much longer.

Implying that Kurt was leaving and Sebastian would be staying behind.

Sebastian brushed past the priest and ran from the temple. He had intended on stopping by his own cell and showering first to get every last trace of that whore off his skin, but he couldn't. That priest knew something…something Kurt must already know by now. Sebastian had to find out for himself.

Sebastian raced through the courtyard and past the dormitories, into the rectory where Kurt was kept.

Sebastian heard his muffled crying before he even approached the door. Sebastian knocked, and the crying quieted into choked sobs.

"Kurt," Sebastian called softly. "Kurt, can I come in?"

After a few long moments of silence Sebastian thought that Kurt might not open the door, but it creaked open slowly. Kurt took one look at Sebastian and fell into his arms. Sebastian wanted to push Kurt away. He felt dirty, ashamed. He had himself convinced that he had just made love to Kurt, but the truth was he hadn't. He'd lain with a whore, a common whore. But Kurt's arms were insistent, pulling Sebastian into the room and sitting him onto the small bed.

"I'm so sorry," Sebastian groaned into Kurt's hair. "I'm so, so sorry." He felt tears roll down his cheeks, but Kurt was shaking his head.

"It's not that," Kurt murmured, though Sebastian could tell by the tone in his voice it might have still been _that_, if only just a little. "Grumbald came back after you left. H-he said that I'm starting my mission t-tomorrow. I'm leaving, Bas. I'm leaving with Alistair."

Sebastian's whole body went rigid, his teeth clenched, his head suddenly full of hateful thoughts. _Alistair_. That whimpering, weak suck up protecting his beautiful Kurt. Sebastian couldn't ignore the fact that he also happened to be Grumbald's charge. Sebastian refused to believe that this was happening. He always imagined that he and Kurt would end up together. He was so sure of it, that even now he couldn't convince himself that things would turn out any different.

Kurt's whole body shook, and Sebastian realized he had spent too much time lingering in his loathing.

"Don't worry, Kurt," Sebastian managed, even though the words sounded weak even to himself. "I won't let them split us up."

"B-but…" Kurt whimpered.

"But nothing," Sebastian said firmly. "I don't care what they say. They can't take you away from me."

Sebastian held Kurt's limp body at arm's distance, noticing just how much Kurt had already given up. There had to be something else. Grumbald must have said something else. He had never seen Kurt like this before, but he decided now wasn't the time to ask.

"Let me go shower and change," Sebastian offered quietly, "and then we'll climb back into bed and think of a solution."

Sebastian wanted to sound confident, but other than running away he couldn't really imagine anything they could do.

But if running away was their only option, Sebastian would take it.

"Can I come with you?" Kurt asked. "And just sit on the floor and wait?"

Sebastian sighed. His original intention was to turn the shower water up to scalding and scream out his frustration, but he couldn't refuse Kurt. He would never deny him anything.

"Sure," Sebastian said, offering Kurt his hand, and pulling him to his feet. "Whatever you want."

A sharp bright light woke Sebastian from his dreamless sleep, and he curled over Kurt's body protectively. He made a decision…he was determined there was no way anyone was taking Kurt from him, Scion or no. He would follow Kurt to the ends of the earth, he would give up his place in the order, even if it meant discommunication…even if it meant death.

"Sebastian? Kurt?" a soft voice muttered, rousing them from sleep. "You have to get up. You have to go, now."

Sebastian blinked his eyes open and saw Tellemband backlit by the bright light, a duffel bag open in his hands as he shoved clothes from a small dresser into it, along with other odds and ends.

Sebastian shook Kurt awake, and Kurt whined, not wanting to leave the peace of his dreams to face the reality of a life without Sebastian.

"No, Bas," he murmured.

"Kurt, babe, it's Tellemband. He says we have to leave."

That only vaguely got Kurt's attention. He opened one eye, watching Sebastian's mentor shove a few more things into an old military duffel and zip it shut. He turned back onto his side, hiding his head beneath his pillow.

Tellemband grabbed Sebastian's arm and pulled him upright from the bed.

"Don't go back to the dorms. I got all your things. Everything is packed in the pick-up outside."

Sebastian shook his head as he tried to understand.

"Take the north road out." Tellemband shoved a hard plastic card into Sebastian's hands. "This is the bank account the order set up for the protector of the Scion, but the minute they find him gone they're going to close it, so find the first ATM you can and empty it. Every cent. Do you understand?" Sebastian looked down at the card and saw a Post-It wrapped around it with four digits written in clear block script.

"I think so," Sebastian said around a yawn. Tellemband looked at the tired young priest and slapped him across the face.

"What the fuck?" Sebastian groaned, putting a hand to his wounded cheek, his eyes opened wide.

Tellemband drew his face close to Sebastian's and spoke slowly, significantly.

"Listen to me," Tellemband said. "There will be dire consequences in the morning when the priests find him gone. You need to leave now, go as far as you can away from here…and don't look back."

Sebastian nodded, his green eyes shining with renewed understanding.

"Continue the mission," Tellemband continued. "Keep him safe. Trust no one. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Sebastian said, finally awake with the gravity of the situation. "I understand."

Sebastian shouldered the bag and lifted a sleepy Kurt into his arms. He followed Tellemband quietly out to the courtyard. He didn't ask any questions, didn't wonder why there were no other priests roaming the rectory halls even though there was always one or two at this hour. He knew Tellemband had done something, but he felt it better not to know exactly what. They padded out onto the cobblestones to the waiting truck. When Sebastian slid Kurt into the truck seat, he started to whimper.

"No," Kurt groaned, still mostly asleep. "No, I don't want to go."

"Kurt, baby," Sebastian cooed, "it's alright. Go back to sleep. It'll all be okay."

Tellemband watched with a small, sad smile as Sebastian kissed Kurt's forehead and buckled him into his seat, closing the truck door quietly. Tellemband hugged Sebastian, patting him on the back and leading him to the driver's seat.

Sebastian rolled down the window and looked into the face of the man who raised him, who taught him everything he knew, who defended him and kept him safe…a man whom he would most likely never see again.

"Sebastian," Tellemband said, his voice shaking a bit with emotion, "don't come back."

Sebastian nodded and fired the ignition, shifting the truck into drive and taking off down the road with Kurt by his side, away from temples and ceremonies and disappointed eyes…and the only life he had ever known.


	3. Sebastian the Protector

**A/N:** _Rated R (For talk about sex, language, supernatural elements, and loose interpretation of religious themes)_

A highway no-tell motel.

That definitely wasn't a place for the lauded Last Scion, but Kurt (plain, regular, beautiful Kurt) had no business being there either. If things were different and Sebastian had his way, Kurt would be settled in the lap of luxury with nothing but the best of everything…the kinds of things Sebastian's past life and his estranged father could definitely help Sebastian give to him. But Sebastian figured this run down little shack - barely four walls, a ceiling, and thankfully indoor plumbing – was the perfect place to hide out for the night. With all the money they had at their disposal and the way the less forgiving priests had never stopped seeing Sebastian as materialistic and self-serving, The Stardust 79 was definitely the last place anyone would think to look for them.

Sebastian paid for the room in cash. The doped out guy behind the desk barely acknowledged his existence, didn't know that he was sharing his room with another person, and Sebastian was grateful for those small favors.

When they left the compound with its towering temples behind, Sebastian obediently drove the north road, hitting every gas station he could, withdrawing money and leaving a paper trail. The account was linked to a trust, which meant no daily limit as long as he withdrew only $800 from each ATM. But doing it this way would make them too obvious. Sebastian needed them to be only obvious enough. Along the way he bought a disposable cell phone at a 7-11 and through a few admittedly shady deals, he made the remainder of the money 'disappear' to a place where he would be able to conveniently locate it five days later. He wasn't too concerned about any of these people turning him in. The last time Sebastian saw any of these thugs was before his father ditched him. He was eight years old, with a crew cut and a broken nose courtesy of dear old dad. It took some tracking down, but he tied up every loose end, and for all intents and purposes, Kurt and Sebastian disappeared somewhere around the Tackaloosa Truck Stop.

Then, because he had taken every word Tellemband said to heart, he trusted no one, and turned their truck due east, driving down a few streets before making a round-about to insure that anyone who had physical contact with them didn't see anything that might be considered suspicious.

If Sebastian allowed himself to dwell more on human sins, he might actually be impressed with his own criminal prowess, but it paled in comparison to Tellemband's ability to pick a lock or crack a safe, so Sebastian stuffed those feelings deep down and concentrated on the task at hand.

Hours after leaving the place they once called home, what they once considered a sanctuary, Kurt awoke, and even though his eyes hadn't completely cleared from his hours of sleep and crying, he commanded Sebastian to tell him everything.

Sebastian still bowed to the Scion. It was a sin to lie to him, even if just to spare his feelings.

Sebastian took a deep breath and explained Tellemband's late night visit, his command to get Kurt as far away from the temple as possible, to continue the mission…to never come back.

Kurt tried to stay stoic, but it was that last part, the last thing Tellemband said to Sebastian that made the tears fall anew.

Kurt and Sebastian were schooled in very different aspects of the order, but one thing was crystal clear for both of them – there were extreme consequences for defying the order's wishes, consequences that Tellemand would suffer come morning.

Consequences that Sebastian would more than suffer if the priests ever found them.

These warnings were embedded in Kurt and Sebastian specifically from a young age, when it was obvious that their affection for each other exceeded the boundaries of mere friendship. Kurt believed it was done on purpose so that he would not fall in love with Sebastian and so Sebastian would not try and kidnap him away…the way he was doing now.

Kurt cried and cried for hours, and Sebastian let him, holding his hand across the bench seat and simply being there for him. He wouldn't tell Kurt not to cry, or that everything would be alright. Sebastian wanted to believe it, but he couldn't make any promises, and Kurt deserved to cry.

He deserved to cry for a lot of things.

So did Sebastian.

Sebastian drove and drove, through the night and into the day, back into night again, until the lines in the road crossed in front of his vision, and he got tired searching out every side road gas station to fill up their tank.

Kurt didn't speak when Sebastian walked him into their detestable room. Sebastian shook out the bed sheets and inspected everything carefully for bedbugs. When Sebastian felt comfortable that the room sucked but was not infested, he lay Kurt down carefully, and then started the task of performing spells of protection, spells of confusion, prayers of cloaking, everything he could think of that would keep search parties – human and demonic – off their trail.

When he was done, he climbed up on the bed behind Kurt, but when Kurt's body stiffened, Sebastian pulled back a little.

"Is this okay?" Sebastian asked. The question sounded awkward since he'd never had to ask it before.

Kurt nodded, and Sebastian pulled in close, the salve of Kurt's body against his immediately setting everything right.

"Would you…could you…"

Sebastian looked down at Kurt's face in the dark, trying to make out the expression on his face.

"Yes, Kurt?"

"Could you tell me what it was like?" Kurt asked, his voice dipping down into a register Sebastian almost didn't hear.

Sebastian was going to ask "What was _what _like?" to stall for time, but he wasn't about to insult the Scion's intelligence.

"I'll tell you," Sebastian said, "but does it have to be right now?"

Kurt sniffled. Sebastian felt a tear drip from Kurt's cheek and fall onto his skin, and Sebastian knew, yes, it had to be right now.

"What do you want to know?" Sebastian asked, praying that if anyone in the heavens above still had any affection for him, even after kidnapping Kurt, that this conversation would be quick and painless.

"What was his name?" Kurt asked.

Sebastian's own body went rigid now. He didn't mean it to, but it was just a reaction to the thought that Kurt might think he cared so much about some random that he would hold onto something as personal as the man's name.

"I don't know," Sebastian groaned.

"Did he tell it to you?"

"Maybe he did, I don't know," Sebastian said, trying to cool his temper. "It's not important."

"It _is_ important," Kurt retorted, sounding strangely defensive.

"No, Kurt," Sebastian said, his voice tight and strained. "It's _not _important."

"He's a person, Sebastian," Kurt argued. "He gave you something of himself…"

"No, Kurt!" Sebastian cried, almost shoving away from the other boy. "No, Kurt, he didn't! He wasn't a virgin. He wasn't in love with me. He was a whore, Kurt. _I_ gave him something. _I_ gave him something I wanted to give to you, and they paid him to take it away from me. So, no Kurt. He wasn't a person. Not to me. He was just a means to an end."

Kurt gasped and the indignantion in that small sound filled Sebastian with hurt and rage.

"You don't think that maybe this was difficult for me, too?" Sebastian stumbled over words that fought one another to be heard. "I always thought they would see us together all these years, see how much I was in love with you, and…"

"Let you sleep with me?" Kurt scoffed.

"Let me pass this by," Sebastian whimpered, trying to keep his voice steady and strong, "and when they didn't, Kurt, it almost broke me." Sebastian sniffled, swallowing back all the fury welling up in his throat, not wanting to lash out at the one person who deserved his anger less than anyone. "The only reason I didn't fight was because I thought, I truly believed, they were making me go through with it _because_ of my love for you, that for certain they would make me your protector. And now to find out that wasn't the case…"

Sebastian shook his head, shaking away dark thoughts; trying to shake away tears, too.

"It wasn't him, Kurt," Sebastian whispered, wrapping his arms around Kurt's body and trying to pull him close, whining low in the back of his throat when Kurt resisted. "It was you. _Your_ hair, _your_ eyes, _your _smile, _your_ body…it was all you, and for now, at least, if I can't keep believing that, then I'm going to fall apart."

Kurt felt Sebastian shiver and melted back against him, cursing himself, cursing his immaturity, after everything Sebastian had been through in the last hours just to protect him. He hated himself for his behavior.

What a Scion he was turning out to be.

All those lessons, all those ceremonies, all this pomp and circumstance, and he was really nothing more than a jealous teenager. Kurt wanted to turn in Sebastian's arms and hold him, but he suddenly had an idea, admittedly sort of a stupid idea that might just make things monumentally worse, but he was going to be all the things Sebastian was too disciplined to be. He was going to be greedy and selfish…and human.

"Can you tell me the daydream?" Kurt asked innocently, pulling completely out of Sebastian's arms. "This way I can pretend I was there with you?"

Sebastian swallowed. He knew what Kurt was doing.

Kurt was the Last Scion, in many ways touted as a perfect being, without earthly concerns and cares, but he was also a human teenager with normal hormonal responses.

"Kurt…" Sebastian warned, moving as far to the other end of the bed as the single mattress would allow.

"Just…don't touch me," Kurt said kindly, "and talk to me."

Kurt waited in the dark, holding fast to the edge of the mattress, hoping that Sebastian would indulge him.

"Alright," Sebastian relented, letting his eyes drift closed, trying to recapture the memory.

"You were waiting for me…on a picnic blanket beneath the willows in the courtyard where we have lunch on the warm days in the spring…"

"Mmhmm," Kurt nodded keeping completely still.

"And we weren't dressed in robes, or some stupid ceremonial garb, just jeans and t-shirts. We were just people…"

Of all the details in his daydream, their laid-back clothing was the part he loved the most. He knew that the world outside their gates didn't always smile too brightly on homosexual couples, but so many days he'd rather face _that_ narrow-minded persecution than the idea that some huge, universal battle between good and evil would tear him and Kurt apart.

"And I sat beside you," Sebastian continued, his voice hoarse and thick, "and you kissed me…"

Sebastian breathed heavily, a grin spreading on his lips. Kurt looked back over his shoulder.

"Did you kiss him?" Kurt murmured, trying not to sound accusatory.

"No," Sebastian answered quickly, opening his eyes so Kurt could see Sebastian's sincerity in their depths. "No…even if they let us, I wouldn't have. _That_ I get to keep."

Kurt smiled to himself in the dark, but Sebastian caught just a hint of the glimmer in his eyes before he looked away.

"I held your face in my hands," Sebastian continued softly, unintentionally seducing Kurt with the smooth slide of his voice. "Tracing your cheekbones with my thumbs, staring deep into your eyes between each kiss, letting my tongue play over the seam of your mouth until you let me in…"

"Aha," Kurt sighed, but the sound carefully camouflaged a moan, and Sebastian heard alarm bells fire off in his head. His own erection returned, that hidden moan bringing it to life. Sebastian locked his hands together behind his back in an effort not to let them wander.

"I stripped you of your clothing, one piece at a time…"

Sebastian waited, letting the image of him helping Kurt out of his clothes sink in. Sebastian saw Kurt's fists tighten in the sheets. He wanted to shut his eyes again, but he couldn't. He'd never seen Kurt aroused before. Sure, they'd shared a bed tons of times, and went their own separate ways silently when the need arose, but he never witnessed Kurt's world unwind, and this, just from the sound of Sebastian's voice.

"A-and I rolled you over on your stomach," Sebastian panted, his entire body trembling with the strain, "and kissed you over your shoulders, over your neck, down your back, licking down your spine…"

Sebastian heard Kurt gasp, his hand breaking away from the sheets to claw lightly over his own skin, trying to follow the trail Sebastian's tongue would have taken, switching to his sternum when his spine was too difficult to reach.

Sebastian's breath shuddered when he thought about the next place he dreamed his mouth had kissed.

"A-and then, Kurt," Sebastian faltered, his eyes falling closed again before the image of Kurt did him in, "a-and then I held you open and gently, very gently, I kissed…"

Sebastian felt shivering fingers press against his lips, and without a thought he pecked a kiss on them quickly.

"N-no more," Kurt commanded. Sebastian opened his eyes, afraid he had offended Kurt, afraid that he had made Kurt feel dirty, but the smile that met him erased all his concerns. Kurt bit his lip, and in the fading candlelight Sebastian saw a tinge of pink on the apples of his high cheekbones, and a slight sheen of perspiration covering his brow. "That's…that was…" Kurt's eyes darted away, unable to stare too long into Sebastian's, which looked at him in a way Kurt had never seen before. "Enough for now. That was enough for now."

Sebastian couldn't find any bit of his voice to answer so he nodded.

Kurt giggled at Sebastian's silence.

"Uh…do…do you think you can hold me?" he asked sheepishly.

Sebastian took a few deep, exaggerated breaths, smirking when Kurt threw his head back and laughed.

"I think I can manage," Sebastian assured him, dragging Kurt close into the circle of his arms, leaving him enough space between them to settle down.

"Thank you," Kurt murmured against Sebastian's skin. "Thank you for humoring me."

Sebastian buried his nose in Kurt's hair and breathed in, trying to banish all thoughts of priests and ceremonies with the scent of Kurt's shampoo that always reminded him of warm spring breezes and that sacred weeping willow tree.


	4. Vows and Silence

The sound of rushing water broke through the dark oblivion that passed for sleep, and Sebastian did everything he could to try and push it away so he could return to that black abyss where nothing evil existed, nothing hunted them, nothing kept them apart. Sebastian reached out to draw Kurt tighter into the circle of his embrace, but once he realized he was lying in the small bed alone, he sat bolt upright; frantic, panic stricken eyes searching the darkness for Kurt.

He tried to wake up and recover his ability for rational thinking, trying to make sense of what was going on around him. He was struck again by the rushing water. The only place he was going to find rushing water in a motel room was the bathroom.

Sebastian breathed a huge sigh of relief. Kurt must be taking a shower. After all the stress and strain of the past day and a half, he most likely woke up to a nightmare and needed to relax. Sebastian listened to the sound of the water beating down on the shower walls and also Kurt's naked body, and for the first time he noticed Kurt whimpering. Sebastian's heart sank, thinking of Kurt – his poor, beautiful Kurt – crying beneath the hot water, probably using the spray to mask his tears. Sebastian swung his legs over the side of the bed and headed to the bathroom door, his hand poised to knock when a sudden, unexpected keen caught his attention. Sebastian held his breath and listened harder, trying to hone in on that sound if it came around again, and when it finally did, Sebastian was sure. His jaw dropped as he backed away from the door. The backs of his knees hit the mattress when he heard the muffled sound again and he stumbled backward onto the bed.

_Oh my God!_ Sebastian thought. Kurt was masturbating!

Sebastian suspected, but Kurt kept his thoughts about things like that very private. Kurt never seemed comfortable discussing anything sexual, and as his friend, Sebastian didn't pry. Even if Kurt hadn't been the Scion, it would have been too tacky to come out and ask. Sebastian imagined it had to be a tricky business for the Scion. Impure thoughts were considered evil, but the priests taught them that as impure creatures themselves there was some wiggle room. But where the priests sit on the bottom of the totem pole, the Scion sat perched on top, so how much wiggle room did Kurt have? Besides, exactly what did a supposedly perfect person fantasize about when they masturbated?

_"Sebastian."_

Sebastian's head snapped up at the sound; a moan so low, so quiet that a single breath would have drowned it out, but Sebastian still managed to hear it, even above the pounding water.

_"Sebastian."_

"Fuck," Sebastian groaned softly. He laid back on his pillows and closed his eyes, fighting with the decision between trying to block Kurt out and go back to sleep, or to let the temptation in Kurt's voice carry him along with it, if only in secret. A sudden thought of a naked Kurt standing beneath the water; steam rising up around his trim, muscular body; head thrown back, eyes closed, his hand fisting around his cock while he moaned Sebastian's name pretty much made Sebastian's mind up for him. He relaxed into the thin pillows and the stiff blankets as much as he could and listened to the muted sound of Kurt's voice.

_"Sebastian."_

Sebastian felt his body awaken, lured by that sound, his hand sneaking into his pants. Honestly, it was something he rarely did. As much as he sometimes detested being a priest, it was still his life, and masturbation didn't seem to fit well with duty, obedience, and responsibility. Sebastian joined the order to escape the long arm of his abusive father. After exactly twelve minutes in the dorms he had planned a way to escape. A minute later, he saw Kurt for the first time…and because of Kurt, he stayed. He made it his personal mission to protect Kurt. It was a vow he intended to keep.

Sebastian's hand moved slowly over his own cock, quickening his pace when Kurt continued to speak.

"Tell me you love me, Sebastian," Kurt murmured.

"I love you, Kurt," Sebastian whispered into his pillow.

"Tell me you want me."

If five words ever existed that could tear Sebastian completely apart, Kurt found them. Sebastian clenched his teeth, growling in frustration as he hit the bed hard.

"I want you, Kurt," Sebastian whined. "God, I want you."

"Tell me you need me."

Sebastian nearly choked. It was a plea, and it sounded so small and plaintive and unsure.

"Every day of my life," Sebastian replied softly to the empty air and the closed bathroom door.

Kurt's ramblings turned into a low, breathy pant and Sebastian could somehow feel beneath his skin and in his blood that Kurt was close. It was like a mist that surrounded him. He breathed it in through his mouth and let it fill his lungs. It expanded out through capillaries and arteries until it reached every last inch of him. Most of all, it completed him in a sensational way. It mended the rifts and filled the holes; every piece that had been torn away from him felt revitalized and renewed, and when he came over his fist, too caught up in the moment to even think about stopping, to consider the mess he'd have to explain when Kurt returned, there were so few of his actual cares left that he could almost convince himself that everything was good and normal in his world. He wanted that feeling. Even as it still lingered in the air around him he craved it. He knew he'd have to be careful not to become addicted, or it could change his relationship with Kurt forever.

The shower water stopped and reality bled in.

"Shitshitshit!" Sebastian chanted as he quickly cleaned himself up with this own shirt, shoving it hastily out of sight in the corner. He was debating changing the bed sheets when Kurt stepped out, completely dressed, skin damp and flushed from the hot water, a cloud of steam wafting around him and rolling across the graying carpet on the floor. Their eyes locked – Sebastian's from where he stood at the foot of the bed and Kurt's where he stopped just reaching the head of it, his face growing pinker by the second. They stared at each other with twin blank expressions that hid awkwardness and fear and embarrassment. Sebastian's heart beat out a steady rhythm that begged Kurt, "Please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't ask…"

Because whatever the Scion asked, his priest would have to answer.

It was a sin for a priest to lie to the Scion.

But Kurt wasn't just a Scion, he was also becoming a man – a man that he had always hoped would have inherited Elizabeth Hummel's grace, tact, and decorum as well as Burt Hummel's wisdom and easygoing nature.

"There's still some hot water left if you want to take a shower," Kurt said, hanging his wet towel behind the bathroom door and flicking off the light. "Though to tell you the truth, there wasn't really all that much to begin with."

"N-no," Sebastian stuttered. "No…I think I'm good."

Kurt climbed back onto the bed and looked up at his friend.

"Are you sure?" Kurt asked, a shy but surprisingly mischievous smile on his plump, pink lips.

Unusually plump, Sebastian noticed. Almost bitten…swollen…

His jaw dropped.

"Yeah," Sebastian confirmed, nodding a little more stringently than necessary.

Kurt chuckled once softly and slid into the bed on Sebastian's side.

"Uh…Kurt?" Sebastian approached Kurt, finally finding the will to move from his spot. "Don't you usually sleep on the right?"

"Yeah," Kurt agreed. "I usually do. I just like the energy on your side of the bed right now. Is that alright with you?"

"Yeah," Sebastian said softly, nodding, and climbing back in beside him. "Yeah, that's fine."

It amazed Sebastian how quickly he managed to fall back to sleep with Kurt in his arms.


	5. Company's Coming

**A/N:** _Warning for death of a major character (not Kurt or Sebastian)_

"Daddy! "Daddy!" Kurt called, racing down the staircase, proudly holding the large diamond-shaped kite in front of him. He'd been working on it alone in his room all day; painstakingly measuring the dowels for the frame and searching for the thinnest fishing wire he could find to bind them together. He spent hours tracing and cutting colored tissue paper, gluing it down and trimming the edges until the whole kite was seamless. When he finished, it looked more like a giant stained glass window than a child's homemade kite.

Kurt bounded down the stairs two at a time in his excitement, which made the silk tail of the kite bounce behind him as if they were flying together. Kurt felt like he _was_ flying, free as a bird in the sky, touching the clouds, soaring as high as the stars, maybe even finding a way to talk to his mother again.

Kurt and his father didn't even have time to mourn her properly after the car accident. They didn't go to her funeral or visit her grave. Kurt remembered so clearly the look in his father's eyes when they received the call that she was dead. It wasn't just anger, wasn't just sadness. It was fear. Fear so powerful that his dad packed anything they could fit into their Navigator and left Lima then and there.

Kurt swore that someday he'd go back to Lima and say good-bye to his mom, with an armful of her favorite white roses and baby's breath, and maybe this kite so she'd know how hard he had tried to find her.

Kurt could hear his father muttering when he dropped down off the last pair of steps and headed for the kitchen. His father did that sometimes – talked to his mom as if she were there, telling her about their day and how much he missed her. But his father wasn't alone. Another voice answered his father back, and when Kurt heard it, he froze solid where he stood outside the kitchen door.

Kurt heard a strange man's voice; a voice he didn't recognize, a voice he was certain he had never heard before. It wasn't a mean or sinister voice, but something about it frightened Kurt, like as if this stranger had the power to change Kurt's life forever. The man and his father talked together in the strained, hushed way adults do when they want to be sure that children won't hear.

"This is a matter of life and death," the voice whispered. "Not just for you and Kurt. Burt, the time has come. Even without the danger to his life, he'd have to come to the temple. We need to protect him. Elizabeth knew it. She had premonitions. That's why she called us before…"

"I can protect him," he heard his father hiss. His father's voice sounded dark and dangerous in a way Kurt had never heard before. Even though his dad wasn't talking expressly to him with that voice, Kurt took a defensive step back away from the door. "If he's not safe here, we'll leave. I'll take him out of the state, out of the country, wherever he can be safe."

"And where is that, Burt?" the voice retorted, volume raising slightly. "Maybe, _maybe_ you can hide him from the sects and the cults and the other orders, but what about the demons, Burt? There's no way to hide him from the shadows. They _will_ find him. What on heaven and earth do you think you, an acolyte, can do that hundreds of trained clerics can't? He's not safe out here, and you're being foolish to think…"

Kurt clenched his teeth, feeling his ire rising at the sound of someone insulting his father. His father wasn't a foolish man. In fact, Burt Hummel was the most practical adult that Kurt had known in all his eight years on the planet, and he wouldn't let anyone come into their house and tell him different. He left his kite on the sofa and pushed through the door, stomping into the kitchen loudly to make his presence and his anger known.

Two heads popped up and snapped in his direction, eying the boy that stormed into their private meeting with a scowl on his adorable, pale face. Burt reached out to his son, but the other man stood, and Kurt was surprised to see that he wore some kind of bright colored robes; the same kind of robe he had once seen his father and mother wearing in an old photograph that used to hang on their living room wall. The man was close to his father's age, and had the same world-weary expression on his tired face.

"Daddy?" Kurt eyeballed the stranger suspiciously as he spoke; his blue eyes never leaving the man's face. "Who is this?"

"Kurt, this is Tellemband," his father said, clearing his throat to rid it of their previous conversation. "He was a friend of your mother's and mine from a long time ago."

The man smiled down at Kurt with an expression of wonder that Kurt didn't quite understand. The man reached out a hand and Kurt took it politely, but the man jerked back as if electrocuted, his smile growing wider from the shock.

"He's a powerful boy already," Tellemband said, wringing his hands together. "Now, I must insist, Burt…"

"Say good-bye to daddy's friend," Burt interrupted, pulling Kurt behind the shield of his body. "We have a lot to do before nightfall."

Tellemband sighed, shaking his head.

"Actually, I do have to go to Westerville to pick up another boy."

Burt's green eyes went wide, his entire face perking up with a hopeful expression.

"You mean you found another…"

"No," Tellemband said softly. "A priest. One of the many."

Tellemband stepped closer to Burt, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Burt," Tellemband said, "Company's coming. They're coming for your son."

Kurt saw his father's resolve slipping at those ominous words, and Kurt clung to his dad's hand, praying that whatever he decided to do it wouldn't mean turning him over to this man. Kurt didn't know how he could possibly survive without his father, especially with his mother gone. Burt squeezed his son's hand tight.

"We'll be fine," Burt said, and at that moment Kurt believed his father to the end of the world and back. They would be fine. His dad would protect him like he always did. There was nothing that could touch them. Kurt nodded on his father's behalf when the man in the robes looked down at him.

Tellemband knelt in front of Kurt. A small glimmer of gold caught his eye, and Tellemband looked around Kurt's neck where a thick gold chain rested with a simple cross dangling below his collar bone. Tellemband reached out to it, his fingertips hovering above it without touching it.

"Your mother gave you this," Tellemband said, recognizing the blessed charm.

Kurt nodded once in reply.

"Hold onto it," Tellemband said with a hint of urgency. "Whatever you do, don't take it off…don't let it go."

It sounded like an innocent enough piece of advice to Kurt; unnecessary though since he never took the cross off, but it seemed to anger his father.

"Go…now." Burt said the words clipped and tight. He pulled Kurt farther behind him until the boy was almost back up against the wall. "And forget that you saw us."

Tellemband took Kurt's hand quickly and muttered a few, quick words that Kurt thought he recognized, though they weren't in English. They sounded like Latin…more specifically a prayer in Latin that his mother used to recite. Kurt's mother taught him a bunch of different prayers, and Kurt learned them diligently, but only because he loved his mother. He wasn't sure that he believed in a God, especially now when this supposedly benevolent, loving, grandfatherly person his mother always talked about saw fit to take her away from him.

Tellemband rose to his feet before Burt could object to the prayer. With a single long glance back at Kurt where he hid behind his father's legs, Tellemband showed himself to the door. Kurt waited until the stranger's car started and pulled off down the road before he looked up at his father. Burt sighed and leaned against the wall. He pulled his baseball cap off his head and scrubbed a hand over his face and into his hair.

"Are we going to have to leave again, daddy?" Kurt asked, staring up at his father with sad eyes. He didn't like leaving their home in Lima, and he had grown fond of the cozy family farmhouse where they had taken refuge over the last few weeks. He wasn't quite ready to say good-bye again.

"I'm afraid so, kiddo," Burt said. He looked down at his young son, his tiny body hunched over with his eyes fixed on the hardwood floor. Maybe Burt should have gone along with Tellemband's plan. This wasn't any kind of life for an eight-year-old, running from people who would try to kidnap him and use him…or worse. Burt bordered on the edge of a decision, but for now he needed to cheer up his son. "But, if I remember correctly, weren't you making a kite?"

Kurt's head perked up immediately, his cherubic face lighting up with the thought of running through the field outside with his dad, trying to get his kite in the air, hopefully succeeding in sending a message to his mom as well.

Kurt retrieved his kite where he left it on the couch and dragged his father outside, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the door. Burt and Kurt ran all around the dry field for hours trying to get his kite aloft, but not a single breeze blew. No matter how hard they tried the kite stayed grounded. The late afternoon didn't feel hot, but it was still and quiet, as if the whole world were holding its breath and waiting for something to happen.

After a while, Burt felt it, too, and he knew Tellemband was right. He had to get Kurt away.

Kurt fell asleep on the sofa while his father loaded up the car. Burt had become a pro at tetris-ing their belongings in the vehicle. He could have probably drawn out a map of exactly where everything fit if such a thing had been called for.

Night came early, unnaturally early, and even though Kurt fell to sleep hard and fast, he had a hard time warding off the nightmares. Several times he tried to pull himself from the oblivion he found himself trapped in, but it pressed in on him; wrapped around him like a thick, heavy blanket. No matter where he ran in his dream, he couldn't escape it.

He felt like he was being stalked.

Kurt's father tried to shake him awake, but for all of his struggling Kurt couldn't force himself to open his eyes. His father's voice wavered slightly as he tried to rouse his son, but then he finally gave up and picked Kurt's body up off the couch.

They barely made it out the farmhouse door before the demons arrived. They grew out of the shadows, seeped in from the darkness of the moonless night outside, formed their shapeless bodies out of the dust and filth covering the floor and hanging in the air. Their evil hissing and foul stench finally woke Kurt from his sleep, but this nightmare was worse than any he had before. He could feel the vile mist wrap itself around his wrists and ankles and try to pull him from his father's arms.

Burt muttered prayers between curses, flailing to find the right blessing, the right spell that would drive the demon forces back, or at least part a path that would lead to the car and to freedom. Quickly Burt became covered by the malicious force and he dropped Kurt to the ground, shoving him with the strength he had left out the door, but Kurt refused to leave his father, even as the malevolent presence attempted to consume him whole.

Kurt could feel the prayers his father uttered move through him. He felt his lips recite them even though these particular prayers he had no conscious memory of. He felt his body become hot; white hot. Burning from the inside out with a light brighter than any he'd ever felt or seen. It filled every inch of his body and shot out in all directions – from his eyes, from his mouth, from the follicles of his hair, from the pores on his skin. The light flowed out of him, filling the dark spaces, every corner reflecting the radiant glow. It singed the shadows, eradicated everything evil in its path, and when it was gone, it disappeared entirely; not a trace of it left behind.

The only thing Kurt could see in the doorway of the quaint little farmhouse he had hoped to call home was his father, his twisted body unmoving, unbreathing. That crushed him so completely he fell immediately unconscious, unaware of the muffled footsteps racing toward him.

The next time Kurt opened his eyelids, he saw inquisitive green eyes staring back at him.

Kurt remembered saying 'hello' to the owner of those eyes. That word should have been there, but the conversation wove in and out of his thoughts, as if it were coming at him in between two radio stations, with verbal static cutting through, overwhelming the words. Kurt heard a distant muttering, something he didn't quite recall in this memory, but he knew it. Even without having to hear it clearly, he knew the words being spoken. He had recited the prayer himself, but along with it, floating beneath it, was something he heard not with this head, but with his heart.

"Kurt?"

A soft, unsure voice pierced the void.

"Kurt…wake up."

Kurt recognized it. It reminded him of love and hope and home. He wanted so much to follow it, but he had trouble pinpointing its direction.

"Kurt, please wake up. You're having a nightmare."

Kurt felt something cool touch his feet, his hands, his forehead. A sweet, warm scent filled his nostrils when he breathed. Frankincense. It filled him with a tremendous calm and peace, drawing him away from his anxiety; leading him away from memories of suffering and pain.

He blinked once and saw those same eyes, green and clouded with worry, but these eyes were older and remarkably wiser. He blinked again, and Sebastian's entire face came into view, his cheeks pink, his hair beautifully bedraggled. Sebastian hovered above Kurt, shirtless, dressed only in his boxer shorts, straddling Kurt's legs, praying over him in much the same way Tellemband prayed over Kurt in his memory.

"That's the fifth nightmare this week," Sebastian pointed out when Kurt's eyes became focused and clear.

Kurt nodded, reaching a trembling hand to touch the cross hanging from the chain around his neck.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Kurt said with a sad shake of his head. "Not really. I…I saw my father die again. And I met you. Do you remember that?"

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

"I might have a vague recollection of that night."

Kurt smiled weakly. Sebastian felt his heart jump at that tremulous little twist of Kurt's lips, that in Kurt's pain Sebastian could still make him smile.

"Do you know what the dream means?" Sebastian asked, holding Kurt's quivering hands in his own.

Kurt felt like that frightened boy again when he looked into Sebastian's eyes. He stuttered over the first consonant, trying to get the sound past his parched throat.

"C-company's coming."

Sebastian's eyes swept across the darkened hotel room, at the front door and the broomstick standing straight and stolid beside it, at the pendulum on the bedside table that hung in place and didn't sway; all of these indicating the exact opposite of what Kurt said, but Sebastian trusted Kurt more than all the totems and symbols in the world.

"Alright," Sebastian said firmly. "We'll leave. Tonight."

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him, trying to calm the tremors that shook his body. Sebastian shut his eyes, murmuring the first prayers of calming he ever learned in the hopes they would help soothe Kurt's troubled soul. Sebastian closed his eyes and concentrated on the words of the simple prayer, but with the scent of Frankincense in the air and Kurt's body in his arms, his mind started to drift.

* * *

Sebastian paced the floor of the priest's tiny quarters, like a large cat prowling behind the bars of a too small cage. He had managed to escape the dormitory twice in the first twelve minutes since the older priest dropped him off and left. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate what the priest had done for him. After all, his dad would have done some permanent damage for sure if he had managed to hit him across the face one more time with that wine bottle. As it was, Sebastian's nose throbbed from what the priest had diagnosed as a 'wicked break'. But Sebastian had been making moves to start his own money laundering scheme, and he couldn't do that from behind these walls.

Sebastian had underestimated the priests and their ability to keep him on lock-down. He thought for sure he could slip right by them unseen, since they all seemed completely preoccupied with the arrival of some new, important visitor; someone they had been waiting for forever by the sounds of things. After his second attempt to break free, an annoyed, squat looking man locked him in the priest's cell till his return. The term 'cell' was apparently what they called their bedrooms, but it was a perfect word for it. The room had enough space for a bed and a dresser. There were no posters or pictures on the walls except for a single cross, but most distressing was the lack of windows.

Sebastian decided he would wait for someone to open the door and make a break for it. It wasn't the most elegant plan, but it was the only one he had.

The muted buzz of conversation outside morphed into a distinct pair of voices coming his way, and Sebastian poised himself for a breakout.

"So that's really him?" a flat, unimpressed voice asked. "I thought he might be more, I don't know…more…"

Sebastian recognized that voice as belonging to the man that locked him in here. He would have to consider how much ground he might lose if he stopped long enough to kick him hard in the shin.

"Bite your tongue, Grumbald," another voice said. "He may be unconscious, but you are still speaking in the presence of the chosen. Whatever your perceptions of what he should be are flaws of yours, not his."

Sebastian knew this priest, too. He remembered that voice arguing with his father a few short hours ago.

"My apologies," Grumbald offered in an extremely unconvincing way. "I didn't mean any offense. But while we're on the subject of flawed boys, about this new acolyte you found today. You know, not every broken stray you bring in here can become a priest, Tellemband, and I won't have him. I have my own acolyte. Alistair. He comes from an affluent family. I have high hopes for him, and besides, his parents will be generous to the order."

"Money doesn't equal devotion, Grumbald," Tellemband scolded. "More than likely they're trying to buy their way to heaven. How come you never see this?"

Grumbald grunted, but it didn't seem to phase Tellemband in the slightest.

"I will be the boy's mentor," Tellemband said, the tone in his voice leaving no room for argument.

That didn't mean Grumbald wouldn't try.

"You…you can't be a mentor and take on the responsibility of caring for the chosen!" he groused indignantly.

The door to the cell swung open, and Sebastian took a step, preparing to bolt, but all thoughts of running left Sebastian at once when he saw the frail boy draped like a ragdoll in the priest's arms.

"Try and stop me," Tellemband challenged.

Grumbald swallowed, too apprehensive to continue arguing. His eyes fell past Tellemband and saw Sebastian smirking back at him. He sneered at the boy, but Tellemband pushed into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"So, I heard you tried to run away again," Tellemband said, addressing Sebastian without looking at him.

"You can't keep me here. You said so yourself."

Sebastian watched the man lie the unconscious boy out on his bed.

"That's right. Until you take your vows, you are free to leave whenever you wish and never return, but I don't think that's wise."

Sebastian looked over the boy's sleeping face. He had a few marks and scratches; nothing close to what Sebastian had with his now crooked nose and purple eye, but otherwise the sleeping boy's face was perfect; his skin flawless, and for some reason it angered Sebastian that someone would dare lay a hand on him.

"What happened to him?" Sebastian asked, curbing his temper. "Did his father beat him up?"

"No." Tellemband leaned over the boy and brushed a few stray hairs from his closed eyes. "His father died trying to save him. He was a good man. When he wakes up, I'll have to tell him that his father's gone, and he'll be very upset. He doesn't have any other family left in the world."

Sebastian sighed, sitting carefully on the bed beside the boy so as not to wake him.

"Who is he?"

Tellemband examined Sebastian critically, raising an eyebrow at his curiosity.

"You've been wandering around unattended. You've probably heard rumors of a special boy with peculiar powers."

Tellemband waited for an answer, and Sebastian nodded.

"Well, this is him. His name is Kurt. We call him the Scion."

Sebastian scrunched his nose, and then winced at the sharp stab of pain.

"What is that?" Sebastian asked. "The Scion?"

"Well, he's the last of a very important blood line." Sebastian looked confused at the priest's explanation. "He is a weapon, of sorts," Tellemband clarified, "for an epic battle between good and evil."

Sebastian scoffed and tilted his head, not sure whether to be annoyed that the old man was so blatantly lying to him or impressed by the creative story.

"You're shitting me," Sebastian drawled.

"Language," Tellemband scolded, and Sebastian rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not. Actually, he's the last Scion."

"So, why is he here?" Sebastian asked, deciding to humor the obviously insane man.

"The priests of this order are sworn to protect him."

Sebastian's eyes trailed back to the boy on the bed.

"So, if I stay, I have to protect him?"

Tellemband untied Kurt's shoes and slipped them off his feet while he watched Sebastian stare down at Kurt, biting his lip between his teeth.

"That's part of the job description, yes." Tellemband covered Kurt in a blanket. "But it's not a job we take lightly."

Tellemband saw the boy's mind working as he continued to pinch his lip between his teeth, eyes glued to Kurt's sleeping face. He lingered right outside the boy's view. Sebastian turned back toward Tellemband with a determined but repentant expression.

"I'm sorry I ran away," Sebastian said. "I promise I won't do it again. I want to stay. I want to become a priest and protect Kurt."

Tellemband crossed his arms over his chest and considered the boy's sudden apology.

"So, are you staying because you want to devote your life to the priesthood, or because you want to protect Kurt?" Tellemband asked.

Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest in a similar gesture.

"Does it matter?" he bit out.

Tellemband considered the boy's question.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, it doesn't." Tellemband gathered up a few books from his dresser. "I must go confer with the other priests. Would you mind staying with Kurt? In case he wakes up?"

"I'll stay," Sebastian said eagerly.

"You won't leave?" Tellemband asked sternly.

Sebastian threw his hands up in frustration at what he felt was an asinine question.

"Look, do you want me to say those stupid frickin' vows now?"

Tellemband fought not to smile at the young boy's impetuousness.

"That won't be necessary if you give me your word that you won't leave."

Sebastian took a deep, cleansing breath, and fixed the priest with the most sincere look he could conjure.

"I won't leave. I promise I won't leave."

Tellemband nodded, feeling confident that Sebastian would stay true to his word, and left the cell, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

The loud click of the door shutting startled Kurt. He blinked and his eyes fluttered open, darting around the dimly lit room, looking for danger, but instead finding another boy about his own age sitting beside him on a hard, narrow bed.

"Hello," Kurt choked out cautiously, licking dry lips.

"Hello," Sebastian said quietly.

Kurt coughed a few times and struggled to prop himself up on his elbows to get a better look around.

"Where am I?"

"You're at a temple," Sebastian said, trying to sound knowledgeable, "with priests."

Kurt furrowed his brow as he appraised the boy with the blackened eye and the bruised nose.

"Why are you here?" Kurt cocked his head.

Sebastian pulled himself up to his full height.

"I'm here to protect you," he said with all the authority he could muster.

Kurt pulled a face and almost laughed. Sebastian held his breath, hoping for the sound of Kurt's laughter.

"Are you a priest?"

"Sort of. I will be soon."

Kurt nodded, sitting further upright and crossing his legs beneath the blanket.

"What happened to your nose?" Kurt asked, pointing a finger at Sebastian's face.

"Oh…" Sebastian scooted back a bit, ashamed to admit to Kurt that his father had beaten him, especially in the face of the great sacrifice Kurt's father made. "I…broke it."

Kurt waved Sebastian over with his hand, and Sebastian crawled over the bed to join him, realizing there was nothing Kurt could ask of him that he wouldn't do. For a boy who had been dead set on starting his own criminal empire and being his own boss, it was an unusual feeling bowing to someone else.

"Here. It doesn't always work, but I'll try to fix it."

"Wh-what?" Sebastian asked, but before he could move away, Kurt placed his hand gently on the bridge of Sebastian's nose. He closed his eyes and whispered a few words. Sebastian felt a pinch in the bridge of his nose. He heard Kurt whimper and a purple bruise formed on Kurt's face, right around his eye. His nose swelled as if he had been punched but then the swelling disappeared, the black and blue bruise dissolving into the skin around it along with the few scratches and scrapes Kurt had to begin with. When Kurt opened his eyes, his alabaster skin was clear. Sebastian put a hand up to his own nose and tweaked it, amazed when it didn't send a spray of sharp pain throughout his face.

"How did you do that?" Sebastian muttered in awe, still twisting his healed nose.

"I don't know for sure. I think I absorb other people's hurt, and then it goes away," Kurt explained. "That's not all I can do, but the other stuff attracts too much attention."

"So you take the pain, and then your body heals you?" Sebastian reworded, trying to make sense of what happened to his broken nose.

"Yeah." Kurt shrugged. "I guess that's how it works."

"Well, don't ever do that again!" Sebastian said, trying to rid himself of the memory of Kurt sporting his black eye and broken nose. "Alright? Promise me?"

Kurt nodded, blushing red with a small smile on his face.

"I promise."

Kurt ducked his head and looked around again, his smile fading.

"My dad's dead…isn't he," Kurt whispered, toying with the edge of the blanket, not really asking but hoping it wasn't true.

"I…I don't think I…"

"What's your name?" Kurt asked abruptly.

Sebastian looked at Kurt with wide eyes. He felt an odd compulsion to answer Kurt's question.

"Sebastian," he said.

"Sebastian," Kurt repeated, and the sound of Kurt saying his name sent a thrill down Sebastian's spine. "Sebastian, protecting me doesn't mean keeping me from the truth. So, please…"

Sebastian sat up straight again.

"Yes," he said plainly. "Yes, your dad is dead. He died protecting you."

Kurt's face went pale and he gasped. He wanted to know. He needed to know, but he wasn't quite prepared to hear it so matter-of-factly.

Kurt stared at Sebastian for a second longer before his whole body crumbled. Sebastian rushed forward and caught him in his arms, holding his thin body as Kurt cried into the blanket.

"It's okay, Kurt," Sebastian murmured into Kurt's hair. "It'll be okay. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you, okay?"

"Okay," Kurt sniffled, but he cried again, and Sebastian held him tighter.

Outside the cell door, Tellemband held his books to his chest, finally walking away to the great hall, knowing that the Scion, for the moment, was in good hands.

* * *

Sebastian held Kurt as tight now as he did then, hushing him gently, running oil soaked fingers through his hair to keep him cool and calm. They held on to each other, tucked into their own sphere of sanctity and silence…until that silence broke with the crack of the broom falling to the floor.

Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt's shoulder and breathed out, his entire body shuddering.

"Yup," Sebastian said. "It's time for us to go."


	6. Love and Punishment

**A/N:** _Warnings for nudity, loose interpretation of religious themes, talk of demons. AU with supernatural elements._

Kurt snickered, smothering the sound by shoving his face into his pillow.

Then he giggled, muffled by the polyester fiber-fill, but loud enough to be noticed.

He crossed his legs at the ankles and squeezed tight, trying desperately to stay still, but it was torture. Simply torture.

Some of it he could ignore. Parts of it even felt good. Too good. He thanked God that he was laying on his stomach or else it would be embarrassingly obvious just how good it felt. But the lower Sebastian got on his back, the closer to his spine and his hips, the more ticklish it became.

Sebastian painted a swirl that dipped over Kurt's hip bone and that did it. Kurt scooted out of reach, destroying an entire row of runes.

"Kurt," Sebastian whined, reaching for the already pitch black washcloth by his knee. "I need you to lie still, or I'm going to have to do the whole thing over again.

Kurt blushed. That actually didn't sound like a bad thing.

"I'm sorry," Kurt said, repositioning himself on the bed, curling his arms beneath his pillow and hugging it tight. "I'm just really ticklish right there."

Sebastian knew. He knew all of Kurt's ticklish spots. He knew the ones that made him hum from pleasure, and the ones that made him giddy, and the ones that seemed to relax him the most. For days since they drove closer and closer to the coast, Sebastian had felt the presence of a new threat following them; a threat that could be evaded by cloaking the Scion in a spell written in runes – runes that Sebastian spent every night painstakingly painting onto Kurt's body with specially prepared plant dyes.

It took at least three hours to complete, and was the epitome of a labor of love; but it also felt like a punishment.

Kurt.

The Scion.

The Chosen One.

But most of all, his Kurt. His gorgeous Kurt, spread out naked on the bed they shared.

They traveled like boyfriends.

They lived like lovers.

Sebastian would give his life for Kurt, and not just because he made vows to do so; but Sebastian would never, ever be able to touch him. Not the way he wanted to. Not the way he fantasized about.

Sebastian sighed, smiling at the flush of red that covered Kurt's entire pale body.

Seeing that blush on Kurt's skin filled Sebastian with hope. Without a single word spoken between them, that rise of color made Sebastian believe that inside this boy, this savior, whose destiny required him to remain pure, was the soul of man who wanted him – heart and soul and flesh and blood wanted him.

Sebastian looked down the length of Kurt's body – his strong back, his muscular legs, his perfect ass…

Sebastian ran his tongue over dry lips.

Kurt peeked over his shoulder, suddenly shy as his gaze locked with Sebastian's intense green eyes staring down at him.

"Are you going to finish?" Kurt asked, his voice soft, struggling to hide his own need for the shirtless boy hovering over him.

It took a moment for Sebastian to realize that Kurt had spoken to him.

"Y-yes," Sebastian stammered, returning back to his pot of dye and his brush. "Yes, of course, Scion."

Kurt frowned. He didn't like Sebastian calling him Scion, but Kurt understood why.

He did it when he needed to be grounded. He did it when he needed to remind himself of his duty above all – above himself, above his personal feelings…

…above love.

Sebastian finished down Kurt's back in silence, his hand shaking slightly as he painted runes over Kurt's ass and down the backs of his legs; Kurt biting back a moan at the delicious sensation it created, trying not to make this more difficult on Sebastian than it needed to be – especially in light of what was coming next.

Sebastian drew the last rune, the one that locked the spell, on the soles of Kurt's feet. He sat back on his calves and looked down at his work, allowing it a moment to dry. He couldn't see the rise and fall of Kurt's back any more and Sebastian knew that he held his breath.

Sebastian knew because he held his breath, too.

Sebastian swallowed hard to give himself courage.

"Turn over, Scion?"

Kurt lifted himself up onto his hands and knees, taking longer than necessary to flip onto his back to give himself as much time as possible to stop the rapid racing of his heart.

Sebastian kept his eyes focused on his knees out of respect, his fingernails digging crescent moons into the skin of his thighs as he waited for Kurt to settle down on the bed.

Sebastian's eyes flicked to Kurt's face as Kurt looked up at Sebastian, and their gazes met, innocence and heat colliding in their combined stares.

Kurt was the first to roll his eyes and laugh, trying to ease the awkwardness.

"You know this is ridiculous," Kurt said, giggling again as Sebastian began a pattern over his collar bone. The spell written on his back didn't continue to his front. Instead, Sebastian drew the secret symbols of the angels, covering every inch of Kurt's skin, saving the symbols of the archangels to protect his core organs and his heart. He also decorated Kurt's face with these signs, but he saved that for last, since he felt it was a sin to cover Kurt's beautiful face. Sebastian knew these symbols by heart, and didn't need to concentrate as hard to recreate them, so Kurt would talk to him and tell him stories and jokes, trying to lift the veil of tension that surrounded them during these sessions.

"What's ridiculous about it?" Sebastian asked, curling a symbol around Kurt's pec, avoiding the sensitive skin surrounding his nipple. "It's important to keep you safe."

"Well, I should get the chance to do it to you."

Sebastian cursed himself quietly when his already suffering cock took interest, and he allowed himself to slip and imagine Kurt straddling his naked body, painting symbols of protection on his chest.

"But, the demons aren't looking for me," Sebastian explained condescendingly.

"They'd kill you if they found you anyway," Kurt said sadly. "It wouldn't matter."

Sebastian's hand stuttered and he paused with his brush poised above Kurt's heart.

"You look like me," Kurt continued, his voice thick with remorse, "we spend all of our time together so you carry my scent…"

Sebastian shifted over Kurt's body, letting the brush fall again and continue its work.

"That makes me the perfect decoy." Sebastian plastered a smile on his face that he hoped would fool Kurt into thinking this was all a part of some masterfully calculated plan.

"You're not a decoy," Kurt said quietly but with a force of emotion so great it almost shattered Sebastian's resolve to pieces.

It would be so easy to take Kurt, to make love to him, to end this for Kurt right now. Then they could be together.

Sebastian wasn't a sympathetic person; he never was. Responsibility, duty, loyalty – to what? The priesthood? The human race? That kind of devotion didn't exist in him for anyone except Kurt. It was for Kurt. It had always been all for him.

Sebastian made a shitty priest, but he'd make one hell of a husband.

Let the priests find a new Scion.

Who cared if it took another thousand years?

Who cared if there wasn't another Scion left?

Sebastian and Kurt could stand hand in hand and watch the end of the world together.

Then Kurt's soul would ascend to the heavens and Sebastian would burn in hell for all eternity because he had soiled the chosen champion and destroyed the only chance of salvation for the world.

Sebastian glanced into Kurt's face and saw his intelligent, perceptive blue eyes watching him. Sebastian was sure that Kurt had gained the ability to read minds, or at least emotions, somewhere along the way. Not that he would need that ability around Sebastian.

Sebastian was an open book; always had been where Kurt was concerned.

Sebastian smiled again, and this time it was softer, more genuine.

"If you want to paint the runes on me, you can, Scion," Sebastian said. "I'll teach you."

Kurt nodded and closed his eyes, tipping his head up and away while Sebastian quickly painted a long, swirling symbol down the length of Kurt's cock. Sebastian knew this one bothered Kurt the most, so he learned to finish it in seconds.

"I'd like that," Kurt said, releasing a shuddering breath through his lips when Sebastian was done. "But I'll put the runes on your chest, and the angelic signs on your back."

Sebastian squinted at Kurt in confusion, but Kurt beamed up at him with unrestrained joy over his brilliant idea.

"Why?" Sebastian asked, carefully moving down to Kurt's knees.

"This way when we lie down in bed together and you wrap your arms around me the demons won't know where you end and I begin. Then I can keep you safe."

Sebastian bit his tongue hard to keep the tears in his eyes from falling onto Kurt's skin and ruining his work.

He didn't need to soil Kurt in order to be condemned to hell.

He was already there.


	7. The Power of Love

**A/N:** _Here is Sebastian training Kurt to use his powers to protect himself from danger. (Warning for mention of destroying an already dead pig so, blood, organs, a few gross descriptions. Also loose interpretation of religious themes.)_

Kurt cleared his mind and concentrated on the body laid out before him a short distance away – dead, cold, and an unsettling shade of bubblegum pink. He focused on the inner cavity of the animal, pictured an empty space in its ribcage somewhere in the neighborhood of its lung and its heart. He tried to fill it with his energy, tried to ignite it with his fire…

…tried to combust it from the inside.

With his fingers pressed to his temples, he narrowed his eyelids and peered at the dead animal, expecting any minute that it would do something spectacular – explode, implode, maybe get up and tap dance. Either way, the only thing he truly succeeded in doing was giving himself a phenomenal headache.

Kurt dropped his hands to his sides and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I…I can't do it," Kurt muttered. "I can't destroy it."

"What's wrong, Scion?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt frowned.

_'For one thing I wish you'd stop calling me that!' _he screamed in his head. He couldn't really be angry with Sebastian. They had to distance themselves during Kurt's training. He needed to limit any sort of distractions. Kurt knew that. The logical side of his brain accepted it.

The rest of him, however, wanted to blow this all off and sit on the bed of their hotel room, wrapped in Sebastian's arms, and flip through the pages of the latest _Vogue_. Instead of taking out his frustration on his young protector, he took a deep breath in, closed his eyes, and let it out slowly through pursed lips.

"I can't kill that poor little piggy," Kurt said, opening his eyes and motioning to the carcass of the porcine lying about twenty feet away from them. Sebastian bought the animal from a butcher in the town over from where they were staying and on the way back he found an abandoned supermarket parking lot in the middle of scenic nowhere for them to practice in, miles away from prying eyes and far enough from the highway to insure their anonymity.

"First of all, you're not killing anything. It's already dead," Sebastian chuckled sarcastically. "Second of all, it's not a _little_ piggy. That's a full grown hog. It weighs 250 pounds at the least. You saw us try to get that thing in the truck."

Kurt wanted to chuckle at the memory of Sebastian and an elderly butcher struggling beneath the weight of that huge pig, but one look at the vulgar thing, decaying in the afternoon sun, slack jawed, sunken eyes staring, empty, vacant, made him want to vomit. His clammy hands shook, and he prayed to God that Sebastian didn't notice.

"Explain to me why you're teaching me to set pigs on fire with my mind again?" Kurt asked, stalling his lesson for as long as possible even though the sun burned hotter every second and flies had started to gather in droves. Something about trying to tap into his powers disturbed him. These powers he had, wherever they hid in his soul, felt like a living, sentient being that didn't belong inside him. They stripped him bare till he was cold and hollow, and when they filled him back up it was with something sinister and dangerous. The few times it had happened, Kurt didn't consciously call upon them. His body seemed to sense the danger around him and protect itself. It fractured him from his physical body; his spirit left and another consciousness took over. He didn't like the feeling. He didn't want to lose himself to it and not be able to find his way back.

"Look," Sebastian said, standing behind Kurt and putting comforting hands on his shoulders, "you need to learn how to protect yourself. You have to assume that your life is always in danger, alright?"

"So, you think I need to protect myself from an army of pigs?" Kurt asked, turning to look at Sebastian over his shoulder and arching an eyebrow in his direction.

"No," Sebastian laughed, but not sarcastically this time, "but pigs are physically similar to humans. They have a similar mass and muscle to fat ratio, a similar flesh density, and we decay at roughly the same speed."

Kurt's eyes went wide and Sebastian blushed.

"I'm not going to even begin to ask how you know all of that," Kurt teased.

"Shut up," Sebastian said, turning Kurt back toward his target, "I watch a lot of late night crime dramas. Besides, don't hate on pigs. They can be mean motherfuckers."

Kurt gasped quietly at Sebastian's language. He never heard any of the priests in the temple curse, and Sebastian always had a mouth on him, but away from the order and the rules that constantly burdened them day after day, Sebastian seemed to curse more.

Kurt swallowed hard thinking about it.

Honestly, it kind of turned him on, but that attraction was a feeling he couldn't afford to have, and it was definitely not something he should be thinking on when he was attempting to use his divine grace to light a pig on fire.

"B-but that's just humans…and humanlike creatures," Kurt pointed out. "What about demons?"

"Sorry, but Gil Grissom didn't quite clue me in as to what animal best represents a demon, so we're going to have to cross that bridge a little later."

Sebastian smiled smugly but Kurt's blank expression killed that smile pretty quick.

"Moving on…okay," Sebastian said, running his hands down Kurt's arms in an attempt to get him to relax. "Let's try this again. Now, you need to find your center."

Kurt sighed.

"You keep saying that," he complained, "but I don't know what my center is!"

"That's alright," Sebastian encouraged. "It's different for every Scion. Pick the emotion in you that's the strongest."

"But how do I do that?" Kurt groaned, throwing his hands up in the air. He felt like he was running around in circles, trying his hardest and getting nowhere fast.

"Calm down, first of all…" Sebastian pressed his chest against Kurt's back so Kurt could feel the rhythm of his breathing. "Breathe in…and out…and in…and out…"

Kurt concentrated on the movement of Sebastian's body behind him, following the ebb and flow of Sebastian's breath against his neck. His entire body responded to Sebastian, every cell seeking him out, letting Sebastian lead him from his distress and anxiety into a place of soothing calm.

"Now close your eyes," Sebastian whispered, "and try to find a thought, a memory, anything that evokes a strong feeling. Some Scion's tried to be warriors and thrived on a thirst for vengeance, some tapped into the deep despair of everything they lost, but I don't think either of those emotions are in you."

Kurt tried to conjure the most powerful memory he could.

He started with memories of his mother – baking in the kitchen on Sunday mornings, having tea parties in the front yard, playing dress up with her favorite blue sundress and a pair of sensible shoes. He thought of the day she died, the way his father's face crumbled when he got the call, and how he packed up everything they owned and left without even saying goodbye.

"That's it," he heard Sebastian's excited voice clearly against his ear, his warm breath tickling Kurt's skin, making him feel alive. "Whatever you're doing, keep it up."

From somewhere in the quiet distance he heard a vague sizzling sound, and when the wind shifted he smelled the pungent odor of burning pork.

Kurt delved deep, opening doors in his memory that he had tried to keep locked – long afternoons with his father fixing cars, eating cucumber sandwiches on the front lawn when Burt Hummel tried to make up for the loss of Kurt's mother, that fateful day when the demons invaded their tiny farmhouse and took his dad away from him.

Tears poured down Kurt's cheeks as the memory of that night flooded his mind. Shadowy creatures dragged his father away and somehow Kurt's divine light managed to decimate them. Kurt's chest tightened, his breathing stopped, and the effect was instantaneous. The skin of the dead animal lit into flames, crackling with the heat, popping and sizzling as it shriveled up and peeled away.

"Yes!" Sebastian crowed. "Yes! You did it!"

Kurt felt Sebastian's lips touch his cheek; a gentle, tender press, nothing more.

"You did it, Kurt," Sebastian whispered into Kurt's ear, and all of a sudden, everything changed. The images in his mind shifted to thoughts of Sebastian.

_"I'm here to protect you."_

_"It's okay, Kurt. It'll be okay. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you, okay?"_

_"I could just call you gorgeous. I think it suits you better."_

_"It'll be you, Kurt. It doesn't matter who I'm with. It will always be you."_

_"…I rolled you over on your stomach, and kissed you over your shoulders…"_

_"It's important to keep you safe."_

Suddenly, Kurt wasn't controlling the fire that made the pig's flesh burn.

He _was_ the fire.

His eyes snapped open, everything from the whites to the pupils filled with a pure, blue flame. It encased his body, made his alabaster skin glow. He barely focused on the pig, his mind simply identifying its location and the grotesquely burnt thing exploded from within, pieces of flesh and charred organs shooting out in all directions, missing Kurt and Sebastian but drenching everything else around it in putrid blood.

Filled from head to toe with this extreme power Kurt knew he could pinpoint anyone, anywhere in the world…and eliminate them. Kurt's conscious fought to take over and push the blue flame away. As quickly as the power came, it dissolved away, leaving Kurt drained. He swayed on his feet, his knees buckling slightly. Sebastian grabbed him from behind and spun him around; when he did Kurt could clearly see the remains of the creature he had destroyed, the black asphalt parking lot painted red with its blood.

"This is great, Kurt!" Sebastian cheered. "This is amazing!"

It took several long moments for Sebastian to finally realize that Kurt wasn't celebrating with him. He set Kurt down on his feet and turned the young savior to face him. His heart melted when he saw the fresh tears in Kurt's eyes.

"Kurt," Sebastian said softly, "why are you so upset? You did it! You learned the secret to tapping into your powers. You can protect yourself."

"No, Sebastian," Kurt said through his heartbreak, "I learned to destroy." Kurt sniffled, dissolving into his own sorrow, falling into Sebastian's arms, and in his head he cried, '_I learned to channel my love for you into a power that can destroy.'_


	8. The Beast That Lies Within

**A/N:** _Warning for mention of blood (not injuries that bleed, just the presence of blood), minor burns, loose interpretation of religious themes, and sexual thoughts._

Sebastian watched Kurt as he pretended to sleep, but he wasn't fooled. He knew Kurt better than that. He knew all the turns and corners in the labyrinth of Kurt's compassionate heart, his exquisite mind that saw flowers where most people saw desolation and hate, his respect for duty and his unending loyalty – his desire to be a man the way his father was a man, through hard work and dedication to those things that were important not just to himself but to others, too. Kurt was growing into that man more and more every day, and not by baby steps, either; by tremendous leaps and bounds.

Which was why Kurt's behavior confused Sebastian, the fact that Kurt lay so still, so far away from him, barely touching, shrugging off any attempt by Sebastian to hold him. It had been days since their training session; days since Kurt had gained the ability to call upon his powers of protection; powers that Sebastian knew Kurt would rely on one day to save the world. Kurt needed to develop them, strengthen them, refine them, but for now all Kurt wanted to do was curl in on himself and lock himself away. After Kurt had started crying in the parking lot that day, he didn't stop for hours, and when he didn't seem to have any tears left he shut down completely.

This more than anything frightened Sebastian.

He had never seen Kurt brought to his knees by the weight of his responsibilities.

Even on those days when Tellemband would skirt around the issue of what Kurt's life would be like after the supposed War to Save Humanity was over and the battle won (won, of course, because there was no other option), silently but not definitively implying that Kurt might not _have_ a future, Kurt never bent to the pressure or the inevitable.

So why this? Why now?

What changed?

Whatever it was, Kurt wouldn't tell him.

* * *

Kurt didn't sleep for days, not really, and exhaustion scraped him thin, physically and emotionally. Determined that Kurt needed to build up the power within him, Sebastian started Kurt on a rigorous training regimen. Kurt didn't want the power to become stronger, but he couldn't deny Sebastian. Kurt obeyed quietly, gritting his teeth and biting his tongue to keep from screaming every time he used his power, or more to the point, let the power use him.

But training till his heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces wasn't the hardest thing he had done since he had his terrible breakthrough. The most painful, gut-wrenching thing he had done was to shut Sebastian out. _Assume your life is always in danger_…that's what Sebastian had told him. Well, now Sebastian's life was the one in danger, except this time it was in danger from Kurt; Kurt and this Godforsaken power that had latched onto him and wouldn't leave him alone. Now that he had tapped into it, called for it by name and allowed it to do its bidding through him, a tiny pool of it lurked inside him, reluctant to give up its hold on his soul. It had found a place to take root, and those roots grew fast and deep. He had become the vessel the priests taught him about in their many long and monotonous lessons. Kurt knew this power had no intention of letting him go.

Sebastian tossed Kurt headlong into training, trying to improve Kurt's skills, focusing on strength over all, and Kurt was succeeding. It had gotten so that he could pretty much annihilate anything with just a thought, and that scared Kurt. He felt the power taking over, filling every cell in his blood, every fiber of his muscles, every fold in his brain. He had tried to hold the power back by reverting to thoughts of his parents, the happy and the bittersweet, in hopes of toning down the unrelenting force within him, but that no longer worked. It knew where his true strength lie hidden, and more and more it fed on it. His thoughts of Sebastian were the only fuel this beast would accept. After he had used every memory he had of Sebastian, from the first moment they met, every time they'd fallen asleep in each other's arms, and every second in between, he started tapping into his fantasies, fantasies of sweet kisses they had yet to share, light touches, softly spoken words.

By the time he had raped every beautiful, intimate thought he had ever had of them together to feed this power, Kurt felt completely and thoroughly violated. But that wasn't enough. The power needed to be fed, even when he wasn't using it. He dreamt of Sebastian more and more – vivid dreams of them together; holding each other, lips pressed against skin, mouths exploring…

Some nights he woke up sweating, shuddering, cumming, his skin glowing, radiant blue heat filling the room, washing everything with its light.

It frightened him to think what might happen if the power got away from him.

What if he hurt Sebastian in his sleep, completely unaware of what he was doing?

What if he killed Sebastian?

So Kurt stayed awake all through the night, counting off the hours as they ticked slowly by, and much to his dismay he knew that Sebastian stayed awake with him.

Eventually lack of sleep wore away at them both, stealing their patience, their humor, their sanity, until the demon of their conjoined stubbornness almost did them in.

It was a month into training, after the hundredth carcass had been destroyed, that Kurt finally snapped.

"I…I can't do this anymore," he whimpered, his whole body shaking, awash with anger, confusion, and shame. He turned away from the carnage and stormed away, slipping in the oily red wetness covering the once black asphalt, his legs carrying him weakly back to the truck.

Sebastian's eyes followed him, befuddled by his reaction when he was doing so well. A long line of blood dripping down Kurt's left elbow caught Sebastian's attention and he raced after Kurt, almost skidding on a pool of blood himself.

"Kurt! Kurt!" Sebastian called after him. "You're cut! You're bleeding!"

"No, I'm not," Kurt threw over his shoulder with obvious aggravation. "It's pig's blood! Everything's covered in pig's blood! I feel like Carrie!"

"Kurt!" Sebastian reached out a hand and grabbed Kurt's upper arm, the skin still hot from the enigmatic blue flame. "Kurt, talk to me." He turned Kurt to face him, the flicker of heat still lurking behind the pupils of Kurt's eyes. Kurt's face twisted at Sebastian's touch, but he didn't try to pull free. He stared down at the arm that held him instead of looking into the young priest's eyes. "Kurt, I'm not permitted to lie to the Scion," Sebastian said, praying that Kurt would look up at him again. "It is considered a sin. But I am your priest, and you must confess to me as well." Sebastian sighed, a heavy sound carrying a weight Kurt often forgot he bore. "How can I help you if you don't confide in me?"

The anger in Kurt's body made way to guilt and he felt himself break apart, as if the anger was the only thing left keeping him together.

"I hate this," he ground out between clenched teeth, a low hiss that was so far from being actual words that if Sebastian didn't know Kurt better he probably wouldn't have understood.

"What?" Sebastian asked. "What do you hate?"

"I hate this power," Kurt muttered. "I hate what it's doing to me, what I've become. I hate that it's taking over and I can't seem to control it." Kurt didn't want to continue but he felt compelled at this point to reveal everything to Sebastian. "It's taken the best parts of me, and I can't run away from it."

Sebastian shook his head, reaching out his other hand to take hold of Kurt's arm.

"I don't understand, Kurt," Sebastian said. "I don't know much about this power either. I mean, I've read about it and the priests told us about it. I know it might be scary, but to a point, it's meant to be. It comes from a source that's as wrathful as it is loving, but how can it take the best parts of you?"

Kurt didn't want to tell him but Sebastian was right. Sebastian was his priest, and as much as Sebastian bent to the Scion, the Scion needed his protector, his priest, to keep him on the right path, and to keep the demons at bay, even the ones that lived inside of him.

Kurt licked his lips but there was no moisture left in his mouth, every bit of it stolen by the confession he had yet to make.

"My center…" Kurt couldn't look at Sebastian while he spoke and he cursed himself for his lack of courage. "My center, where all of this comes from…" Kurt's eyes scanned the parking lot and the morbid necropsy that surrounded them, "is my feelings…for you."

Sebastian stepped back, but not far enough to take his hands off of Kurt. This was the first time Kurt allowed Sebastian to touch him in weeks, and there wasn't any reason in heaven or on earth that he intended to let Kurt go.

"What feelings?" Sebastian asked, but it sounded more like a plea.

Kurt fixed his eyes back on the hands that held his arms. He sucked in a long breath, the glow beneath his skin preparing to spring back to life.

"That I love you," Kurt whispered, the sound traveling only far enough past Kurt's lips to strike right at the core of Sebastian's heart without a single syllable going astray. "That I'm _in_ love with you."

Sebastian wanted to laugh. He wanted to dance. He wanted to run and run and run. Kurt loved him. Kurt was _in_ love with him. He wanted to pick Kurt up in his arms and spin him around. He wanted to kiss him hard on the mouth and steal all of his breath away. Instead he took a deep, steadying breath and a good long look at Kurt, eyes downcast and squeezed shut, his skin still glowing blue. Sebastian could feel it crackle beneath his touch, the heat of it just uncomfortable enough to warn him away but Sebastian didn't let go. For the first time Sebastian saw what Kurt was really hiding. Without having to say anything else Sebastian knew why Kurt was in so much pain. It all made so much sense now, the past few weeks, Kurt's sudden distance, the lack of sleep. In hindsight it was blatantly obvious, and Sebastian felt so foolish for not having seen it before.

"Oh, Kurt…" Sebastian's voice was a gentle breeze to Kurt's ears. "Oh, Kurt. I'm so sorry. I should have…"

"No," Kurt said, smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever. "You were just doing your job. I should have been better at doing mine."

Kurt thought that would be the end of it - revealing his feelings, telling Sebastian the truth; he thought for sure that was the first step on the road to solving his problem. He had hoped that maybe somewhere in Sebastian's collection of tomes and scrolls given to him by Tellemband would be some insight on how to control the power now that he knew what the source of it was, or at the very least how to curb his desires.

But there was nothing. Sebastian looked and looked, re-reading every journal, every book, translating ruins and glyphs over and over some nights. They still didn't touch, and since they couldn't touch, Sebastian refused to sleep until he came up with an answer. After the local police crime scene team stumbled upon their 'training grounds', Sebastian decided this was as good a time as any to relocate their operation and maybe, just maybe, a fresh start would give them some much needed perspective.

Sebastian moved them into a hotel that was more like a seedy, low budget apartment complex where rooms were rented by the week. At least it had a kitchen. Kurt loved to cook, and Sebastian needed to remind Kurt of all those things that he loved. They were on the fourth floor, next to a lonely old woman whose front patio was filled with scraggily brown plants, most of them months past dead, which she fawned over, tending them with all the confidence in the world that they would soon bloom again.

"Look at what Mrs. Clawson from next door gave us." Sebastian grinned, holding out a dusty black pot with a single thorny branch sticking out, leaning to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Kurt glanced up at it with the tiniest flick of his glowing blue eyes and scoffed.

"Why bother?" Kurt's uncharacteristically sardonic tone made Sebastian flinch. "Why does she fuss over those poor dead things? Such a waste of time."

Sebastian put the plant down gently on the kitchen table and looked at Kurt, the subtle glow now ever-present, lighting the dark room he sat in, sulking on the sofa with wide, unblinking eyes, like a child of light hiding in a cave and surrendering to a life in the dark.

Sebastian was losing him.

Enough was enough.

"That's it, Kurt," Sebastian said, bounding to the couch in three steps, "we're getting out of here."

Kurt didn't resist when Sebastian gathered his body up into his arms, lighter than Sebastian ever remembered him being. He covered Kurt in a blanket and sprinted down four flights of sketchy stairs to their truck parked below. Sebastian wasn't sure where he was going but he turned their fate over to the spirits that governed their lives, guided their path. Those phantom caretakers took the wheel from Sebastian's hands and without knowing the where, they ended up exactly where they needed to be – an abandoned department of transportation depot on the far side of town, not much more than a vacant black lot hiding behind what remained of a cement building, used to store old drums full of water for use during the odd natural disaster.

Sebastian parked in an area where the building completely blocked the view of their vehicle from the street, though the area seemed fairly deserted. Kurt watched Sebastian with vague curiosity as the priest lined the barrels of water, fifteen in all, in a single file line horizontally in front of them, about fifty yards away.

"Okay, Scion," Sebastian muttered when he was done, opening Kurt's truck door and pulling him from his seat, "we started this together, and now we're going to finish this together." He half-walked, half-dragged Kurt's body a distance from the truck in full view of all fifteen drums. "You have the power inside you, and it's strong. You just need to learn how to control it."

"Sebastian," Kurt mumbled, "I can't…"

"Yes, you can!" Sebastian interrupted harshly. "Damn it, Kurt! You can do this. You have to concentrate."

"Sebastian…"

"No!" Sebastian yelled, turning Kurt's face to meet his eyes. "No! You're giving in, and I'm not going to lose you. Not now. Not to this."

Sebastian propped Kurt up, helping him stand on his wobbly feet. Sebastian stood behind Kurt, preparing to catch him if he should fall. Sebastian fought to calm himself, to steady the shaking in his hands that came with the idea of Kurt slipping farther and farther away from him.

"Now, look at the barrels and listen to the sound of my voice."

Kurt nodded. Sebastian wasn't sure whether or not it was intentional but he would take whatever cooperation he could get. Sebastian leaned close to Kurt's ear and sighed, letting the warmth of his breath bleed out over his neck. That single touch ignited the spark within Kurt completely, and before Sebastian could say or do anything else the first barrel exploded, sending a spray of water all around them. Sebastian swallowed hard, praying for strength, praying for guidance, but not for himself; for his Kurt.

"You can have me, Kurt," Sebastian whispered, trailing a finger down Kurt's shoulder to his elbow, and then further down to his wrist, "anytime you want me, anyway you want me. I am so in love with you, sometimes I can't breathe."

The second barrel exploded like the first, water shooting up like a geyser and landing on the dry cement with a hard splat. Kurt's entire body shuddered.

"W-why are you doing this to me?"

"You need to learn how to cage your power, Kurt," Sebastian murmured against Kurt's skin. "If your love for me is your center, than you need to face it, not run away from it. I can't watch you destroy yourself when I can help you."

Kurt swallowed his desire and his whole throat ached.

Kurt felt Sebastian's breath continue to warm his skin as he waited, waited for Kurt to object, waited for Kurt to pull away.

"I've loved you from the first second I saw you, before I knew what love was, and…and I've dreamt of having you," Sebastian stuttered, tamping down his fear of telling Kurt his deepest secret, the only one he had ever kept from Kurt, "dreamt about having you every single night since I was thirteen years old."

The third barrel didn't just explode, it disintegrated. The water spread over the floor in a puddle where the barrel had been, but the metal was gone. Kurt's skin turned blue - blue and clear as ocean glass, the heat of the fire that encompassed him rolling off his body in waves.

"I dream about being inside you…" Sebastian didn't relent, even as the next two barrels imploded, crumbling at the exact same time like crushed soda cans, thin, frail, collapsing inward, the sound of it punching the air, "dream about your soft skin and your heat, jeez…" Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt's shoulder, touching it briefly and then hovering so as not to get burned. "You must feel amazing."

Tears collected in Kurt's eyes only to evaporate away and never make it down his cheeks, but that didn't mean he wasn't crying; it didn't mean his despair didn't exist, that it wasn't real. He had the same dreams, more so recently than before, and he wondered if maybe this power had punctured a hole into Sebastian's mind and allowed them to share this experience to feed its own greed.

Kurt loved Sebastian – loved him more than duty, more than honor, more than his own life, though he knew that expressing that love would only end in tragedy. What they had, together or apart, was sacred, and he refused to let anything, anything at all, use it for any reason, and definitely not this.

He would not be corrupted. He would not be a pawn.

Kurt Hummel was the Scion, and the power that he wielded belonged in him and him alone. If it was fueled by love then so be it, but he was taking back control.

"I want to kiss every inch of your body, Kurt…"

Kurt let Sebastian's words weave their way into his heart and cast their own magic. He let them blend with his energy and form a thread, something strong, indestructible, something that would last the way their love would last beyond evil and demons and supernatural quests, beyond his own death if that's truly what his future held in store for him.

Another barrel blew, shot straight into the air raining water down on them, missing them by mere inches when it crashed back to the ground. Kurt turned toward Sebastian, turning his back to his targets which seemed clear in his mind regardless, and pressed their foreheads together, Sebastian grimacing against the sting of Kurt's skin burning into his.

"You think that you don't have a future, Kurt," Sebastian said, raising his voice slightly, fighting over the sound of the drums exploding one by one in rapid succession in order to be heard, "but you do. You have a future. A future with me. And I swear that when this is all over I'll make this up to you. Every day that I didn't kiss you, every day that I didn't make love to you. I'll make it all up to you. I promise we'll be together."

The fifteenth barrel blew and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body, his forearms singed by the blue fire.

"I love you, Kurt," Sebastian confessed quietly as his skin burned. "Forever I'll love you, and that's never going to change."

The quiet that followed the destruction of the last drum startled Sebastian. So many explosions, one after another, that they rang in his ears, but now nothing but a faint sizzling sound which he assumed by this time was his own skin.

Everything around him was cool; the air surrounding him comfortable with the chill of a coastal wind blowing through his hair. His burns dissolved, absorbed back into his skin, the scorch marks disappearing as if they had never existed.

Sebastian looked into Kurt's eyes, still alight with a simmering glow, like a dying ember. Kurt's eyes rolled slowly skyward and Sebastian followed his gaze up to where a diamond-shaped piece of metal, torn from one of the barrels, spun above their heads. It whirled left and right, bending and unbending here and there, melting at the rough edges and corners, and then dropping to the ground with a metallic tinkle. It hit the asphalt much more delicately than Sebastian would have thought, and when it touched down, Kurt's legs buckled beneath him and he fell along with it. Sebastian caught him quickly, cradling him to his body, feeling the drumming of his heart beat against his chest.

Sebastian carried Kurt to the truck and helped him carefully into his seat, reclining the back so that Kurt could lie down. He felt like such a bizarre contradiction of success and failure. Kurt looked at peace, breathing deeply and evenly in sleep. He wanted to leave and get Kurt as far away from there as possible, but curiosity nagged at Sebastian, pulling him back to the spot and that piece of melted metal lying on the concrete.

Sebastian crept up to it, measuring his steps in case he needed to bolt back to the truck, unsure as to what the piece of metal was, or what it had turned into. As it came into view, the butter yellow metal from the drum having turning into a burnished gold, Sebastian stopped…and smiled, as a priest proud of his charge; as a man in love, touched by such a token as the heart laying at his feet. Sebastian crouched down and picked it up, feeling the weight of it in his hand and then folding his fingers around it.

It was Kurt's heart, and he made a silent vow to keep it safe.

He drove at full tilt back to the hotel, parked in the same fortunate spot, and carried Kurt up the stairs, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with a limp human body dangling in his arms. He laid Kurt out on the bed, every muscle in his body relaxed, his face young and innocent looking, and for the thousandth time Sebastian cursed a world that would burden such an amazing man with its sins, and a God that would force so much sacrifice onto one of his most devoted followers.

Sebastian climbed into bed beside Kurt, not sure how he would feel about being held while he slept, but as he was throwing more and more caution to the wind every single day Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body and buried his face into Kurt's neck.

Hours they slept, or it could have been days, but when Sebastian opened his eyes, light streamed in through the parted curtains, and Kurt was gone.

Sebastian bolted upright in bed, panting heavily, straining to focus in the dim light in search of his charge whom he found, much to his relief, puttering about the kitchen, putting dishes into the sink and a carton of milk back into the refrigerator. Kurt stood straight as he walked, at ease with his body, the telltale blue glow gone. He turned back to Sebastian at the sound of the bed springs squeaking and caught the look of worry in Sebastian's eyes, and Sebastian saw the burn in Kurt's. The fire within them was there but faint, and it had changed. It wasn't foreign and overwhelming, or dark as Kurt often feared. It was Kurt's flame, subtle and warm, entirely under his control.

Kurt walked over to the bed and sat beside his priest, scooting as close to Sebastian as he could. He took Sebastian's hand for the first time in over a month without persuasion or prompting. Kurt smiled and Sebastian knew that whatever answer Kurt had been looking for, he had found it. Kurt turned his eyes, deeply blue and full of all the things he hadn't given a voice to, over to the kitchen counter. Sebastian's eyes followed and landed on a cake – perfectly domed shape, lightly dusted with sugar, and so rich Sebastian conjured the taste of it in his mouth without even taking a bite.

Or maybe that was Kurt sharing the taste of it with him through his thoughts, through this new connection they seemed to have, an unobstructed window into each other's minds. He pictured the two of them lying together in bed and feeding each other with their fingers, laughing and smiling without a single worry in the world instead of the world being their worry.

In the dim light Sebastian saw the familiar bluish glow. It crept over Kurt's skin in a wave from where his hand held Sebastian's, rushing up his arm, through his neck, illuminating every vein and artery as it went, over his cheeks and finally lighting up his eyes. On the counter, a single candle fizzled and then flickered, a small droplet of flame consuming the wick, and nothing more.

No massive explosion. No earth-shattering destruction.

Sebastian's jaw dropped.

"Kurt, you…"

"Wait," Kurt said, his voice soft as the dim light in the room but all encompassing; it spoke to Sebastian's heart and his heart alone. Kurt lifted Sebastian's hand slowly, reverently to his mouth, his eyes of twinkling blue flame still locked onto Sebastian's eyes of green, growing wider as Kurt brought his lips closer to Sebastian's skin.

Kurt's lips brushed Sebastian's hand, feather light and soft. When he pressed a kiss to the back of Sebastian's hand, Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath. Kurt's eyes darted away, but not out of shame or shyness. They directed Sebastian's gaze again to the opposite side of the room where the pathetic little rose bush clung to life. Another ripple of blue light flowed over Kurt's body, chasing itself on the surface of his skin, and before Sebastian's eyes the rose bush straightened, its desiccated brown stems turning plump and green, the drooping buds reforming, transforming from a morbid grey to the blush of pink that nature had originally gifted them.

Sebastian held on tighter to Kurt's hand, the kiss that Kurt placed on the back of it tingling like a strike of electricity.

"How…how did you know you could do that?"

"I actually found out by accident," Kurt said. He looked over to the window and a sweep of his eyes pulled the curtain back, giving Sebastian a clear view of Mrs. Clawson's patio, all of her previously dead plants bursting with life, flowers blooming fuller and larger as Kurt looked at them. The deceptively frail old woman danced among them, giggling with her hands pressed to her mouth and tears in her eyes. "It never dawned on me that I could do something as wonderful as that."

"Kurt…" Sebastian took his hands and kissed them, feeling giddy inside. "I am so proud of you."

Kurt nodded, but in the midst of Sebastian's joy, Kurt looked melancholy. Kurt leaned forward and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's torso, pulling him back down onto the bed beside him.

"I'm sorry, Sebastian," Kurt said, happy to be back in Sebastian's arms.

Sebastian chuckled.

"The Scion doesn't have to apologize," he muttered, almost as if by rote. Kurt sighed. He looked up into Sebastian's face, his signature half smile twisting the corner of his mouth.

"My name is Kurt Elizabeth Hummel," Kurt said with a hard, determined stare, "and I am apologizing to the man that I love."

Sebastian's half smile turned into a fuller, more genuine one as he pulled Kurt close to his chest.

"Apology accepted, Kurt." Sebastian placed a hidden kiss into the part on Kurt's head. "Just please, don't shut me out again."

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut tight against the light in the room and the blue glow in Kurt's eyes, and breathed in to catch a whiff of Kurt's scent – his vanilla shampoo and the chocolate from the cake, the candle burning on the kitchen counter, and Kurt, plain old Kurt, who smelled like spring and sunshine to Sebastian and always would.

The only other words he spoke to Kurt he said with his mind and his heart.

_Don't shut me out, Kurt. I can't live without you._


	9. The Sleeping Heart

**A/N: ****_This is a short and sweet little one-shot that follows 'The Beast That Lies Within' where Sebastian discovers the significance of the metal heart totem that Kurt made. Romance, fluff, supernatural elements, loose interpretations of religious themes._**

Sebastian tried to sleep but a shadow in his mind kept getting in the way. He pulled his body closer to Kurt, chasing the warmth of the Scion's body, the soft sounds of his breathing while he slumbered at peace for the first time in too long, and that smell of jasmine and vanilla that reminded Sebastian of warm spring breezes and his beautiful daydreams of being with Kurt, together as friends and lovers, with no barriers between them. Apart from that (though he might not ever outright admit it) even though his job was mostly to protect the Scion, Sebastian felt much safer with Kurt wrapped in his arms, and not for the simple reason that Kurt had learned to tap into the limitless power that existed within him. Sebastian felt that the moment they touched, when Sebastian held Kurt close and they slept side by side, the evil of the world disappeared. It paused, along with time, the rising of the sun, hell even the rotation of the earth, and nothing could touch them or what they had together, as innocent and unconsummated as it needed to be. Though they struggled and fought and ran during the day, the shield of true love guarded them while they slept.

All of these things soothed Sebastian. They always did, but for now they didn't bring him any closer to rest.

A presence lurked nearby that Sebastian couldn't identify.

The metal heart that Kurt had fashioned out of a piece of rusted metal from the old water barrel he had destroyed fascinated Sebastian. No longer a pitted piece of old steel, it was smooth and polished, a luxe-looking gold that gleamed without light. He carried it with him everywhere. The totem seemed to _want_ him to carry it. He wore lounge pants with pockets to bed so he could keep it with him while he slept. It sang to him, and when he held it in his hands and looked at it, it seemed to vibrate with power. The power didn't lure Sebastian to it so much as it simply intrigued him. It reminded him of something that he read when he was young, before he joined the order. No, he didn't read it; his mother read it to him in those days before she died. Sebastian racked his brain trying to remember the title to the stupid book. He vaguely remembered the plot had rats in it, rats that could talk, and there was a stone – a precious, valuable stone with special powers that slept until given to someone with courage in their heart.

The stone slept.

Courage of the heart…

He let his mind ponder these things when he finally drifted away to sleep with Kurt curled up against him until one night his brain stumbled on the answer.

_Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH._

The necklace in the book…the blood red stone; it held a power that lay dormant. It waited patiently for someone worthy to come along and when they did, it would hear their call. But the totem he held onto was different. He could feel it breathe.

This heart didn't sleep.

It actively, consciously waited.

Sebastian had a feeling it waited for him.

One night, the heart became tired of waiting.

Sebastian awoke to the blue flame in Kurt's skin glowing dimly, pulsing in waves, heating his pale skin. Sebastian felt a crackle of electricity echoing in response, and that echo came from the metal heart in his pocket. Sebastian reached in slowly, half expecting the metal to be scorching hot but it was cool to the touch. It sparked and hissed, and when Sebastian brought it closer to Kurt's skin, an arch like lightning threaded between them.

The heart, Sebastian realized with his jaw dropped in awe, had been infused with Kurt's incredible power.

Sebastian pulled the heart away and the thread of lightning broke, but the heart continued to glow. Kurt's skin grew brighter in response.

"Amazing," Sebastian whispered, looking over the metal object, peering at it intently. Suddenly, his mind flooded with a hundred memories that weren't all his own.

Memories of the day Kurt and Sebastian first met - that painful broken nose he had and how Kurt had fixed it.

The two of them sitting side by side, studying together in class, passing notes when the priests weren't paying attention.

A rainy afternoon spent trying on each other's clothes for no good reason.

Kurt splitting his dinner with Sebastian, giving him half of his chicken Alfredo and Sebastian giving Kurt all his baby tomatoes.

The first birthday cake Kurt taught Sebastian to make and how it tilted precariously to the left, but Kurt told him it was the best cake he had ever tasted.

Sebastian's daydream of making love to Kurt underneath their favorite willow tree, the flush on Kurt's porcelain skin beneath the setting golden sun, and his lips - rosy red and swollen from kissing - begging Sebastian for just one more…

The final fantasy, the most powerful one, the one that struck Sebastian straight through the heart like a hot branding iron, making sure it stayed imprinted there forever, was one of Kurt's.

Kurt and Sebastian on their wedding day...and the intimate details of their wedding night. Sebastian slowly stripping a black tuxedo from Kurt's body, button by button, pressing kiss after kiss to Kurt's skin as Sebastian exposed every creamy inch, threading his fingers through Kurt's walnut-colored hair, the blue eyes that locked onto his with a look of love and trust – eyes that glowed slightly with blue fire.

This fantasy was new.

It was recent.

It was after Kurt learned to control his blue flame.

"Oh my…" Sebastian moaned, his eyes drifting shut, and all of a sudden a stunning heat, not painful but overpowering, shot through Sebastian's veins. It filled every cell of him, from his toes to his brain. He felt whole, complete, overwhelmed.

Sebastian opened his eyes slowly, focusing on the golden heart he held clutched in his hand, unfolding his fingers to get a better look at the object. What he saw was his reflection staring back at him…his own face with glowing blue eyes. The sheets, the bed, the whole room, everything around him, shimmered with its light.

Sebastian was engulfed entirely in Kurt's blue flame.

Sebastian's body shuddered at the thought - the thought of Kurt's power moving through him, inside him. Sebastian could feel him on his body, covering his skin, that smell of jasmine and vanilla warm and potent just beneath his nose.

The idea of it playing in his mind made the flame glow brighter. Sebastian raised his other hand to his face and his eyes went wide. It was consumed completely by a ball of blue fire.

"Holy…and…shit…" Sebastian murmured as he moved his hand left and right, watching the flame shift with the twist of his hand.

"Sebastian," Kurt muttered, turning to face the priest with his eyes still closed, "don't curse so much."

"Uh…Kurt?" Sebastian whispered, not wanting to upset the flame in any way by talking too loudly. "Kurt, open your eyes."

Sebastian saw the glow in Kurt's eyes before he even opened them, his lids illuminating from within in the presence of another blue flame. Kurt peered at Sebastian through narrowed, sleep heavy lids, but when he caught sight of the fire alight on Sebastian's skin, his eyelids popped open.

"Holy…and…"

"Shit," Sebastian finished for him, "yeah. I know."

"But how?" Kurt reached out a hand, fingers dancing in the blue flame, trying to ascertain its origin.

"I think…" Sebastian showed Kurt the metal heart, "that this has something to do with it."

Kurt held his hand over the heart. Thin tendrils of white lightning shot out at him, not in a threatening way, more as if in acknowledgement of where it came from. Kurt plucked the heart out of Sebastian's hand and the flame that covered Sebastian's skin blinked out.

"Try to do that again," Kurt advised, feeling a little bit of his own blue flame recharging the heart in his palm.

Sebastian concentrated on his hand, staring at his skin, trying to get the blue flame to reappear, but nothing happened. Kurt slipped the heart into Sebastian's palm and his hand burst into flames, the fire climbing high with the strength of his focus. Sebastian laughed.

"What…what do you think it means?" Sebastian asked. Kurt sat up straighter and shrugged. He couldn't look away from the fire on Sebastian's skin. He felt a connection to it. It reached out from Sebastian to get to him, and in return, it flowed from him.

"Let me…" Kurt stared into Sebastian's eyes and Sebastian felt a surge, a charge of energy that started from the tips of his hair and traveled in a ripple down his back.

"Interesting," Kurt whispered.

"Wait…what?" Sebastian asked. "What did you just try to do?"

"I…uh…" Kurt ducked his head, looking down at his hands with a sheepish smile on his face, "I tried to set your hair on fire."

"What?" Sebastian laughed.

"Well, I needed to know if this blue fire would protect you…" Kurt swallowed hard, "from me."

"Kurt," Sebastian said, reaching out and touching his hand lightly, sucking in a sharp breath when the fire united, "this fire _is_ you. I was never in any danger."

Kurt bit his lip and stared at their joined hands, the rush of blood in his cheeks visible through the blue flame as a deep purple stain on his skin. Sebastian smiled at the surreal beauty of it all.

Sebastian the priest and the Scion, his protector. It made Sebastian's heart flutter.

"Well, what do you think we should do now?" Sebastian said. Kurt blinked once and extinguished his own flame. Sebastian tried, but he couldn't do it. He didn't have Kurt's skill or finesse. Kurt raised a hand and trailed it down Sebastian's skin. The blue flame followed him, winking and expiring beneath Kurt's hand.

Kurt's lips cocked into a mischievous grin.

"Do you know where we can go buy a pig?"


	10. Owner of My Heart - Part 1: Confessions

**A/N:** _So here is the start of a two-part chapter for the Scion verse, 'Owner of My Heart'. This follows after 'The Sleeping Heart'. In this chapter, Kurt teaches Sebastian how to control the power of the blue flame, and Kurt tells Sebastian something that's been on his mind lately. Romance, angst, AU, supernatural elements, loose interpretation of religious themes. Warnings for sexual tension._

_I am the light._

_I am the fire._

_I command the flame, the flame does not command me._

Sebastian calmed his mind the way Kurt showed him, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth to the rhythm of his heart until his whole body ebbed and flowed like the spiraling breeze around his feet or the waves crashing on the nearby shore, his entire being down to his soul vibrating with power. He concentrated on the quarter sitting fifty feet away, balanced in the mouth of a glass cola bottle. With the heart totem in his pocket and Kurt by his side, he called upon the power of Kurt's blue fire, tapping into the fantasy that never failed to fuel the flame within him – a single kiss, charmed and innocent, one that they had not yet shared; the picture in his mind so clear he could call it forth without any effort.

He envisioned kissing Kurt for the first time here, on the shores of the Atlantic at sunrise, with the first rays of morning light throwing sparkles across the water. He pictured those sparkles reflecting in Kurt's eyes, his true eyes, so brilliantly blue they put the waking sky to shame. They would sit side by side on the cool sand and watch the world come alive together. Kurt would shiver when the wind came in off the water, and Sebastian would scoot closer, putting an arm around his shoulders, huddling their bodies against the cold. Kurt would laugh that adorable, bashful laugh he got when Sebastian held him, his eyes drifting to his clasped hands so he cheeks wouldn't color.

Sebastian's hand would creep up Kurt's back to the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, scratching gently at his scalp until Kurt melted into his touch. At some point Kurt would turn to look at Sebastian…he always did…and Sebastian would inch forward, holding his breath, waiting to see if Kurt would pull away.

But he wouldn't, because this was their time to be together. They would have earned it, however they were meant to, whatever sacrifice needed to be made. It would be over and done. Sebastian pictured the look on Kurt's face – a little frightened and slightly unsure, but overshadowed but Kurt's overwhelming trust, because Kurt trusted Sebastian, and Sebastian would never betray that trust.

Sebastian would rub his nose along the tip of Kurt's and make him laugh, make him relax into Sebastian's embrace. This kiss itself would be just the lightest brush of Sebastian's lips against Kurt's, but the thought of that touch, of Kurt's skin against his, sent electricity crackling all over Sebastian's skin, and burned in his stomach like the golden rays of the rising sun.

Sebastian smirked when the fire lit his eyes.

Kurt stood close to his pupil and watched as Sebastian's eyes glowed blue, subdued, controlled, and in a second the coin spun madly on its pedestal. It took less time for Sebastian to conquer the blue flame than it had for Kurt. Sebastian had his fair share of decimating pig corpses and exploding water barrels, but he had Kurt to guide him. With the power that the fire gave him, Kurt was able to breach Sebastian's mind, entering through that window that had been created and show him how to manipulate the fire, how to control it, how it felt when he truly had it under his command, and where the power came from – what memory to use to tap into it.

That kiss was as much Kurt's daydream as it was Sebastian's.

"See, now you're just showing off," Kurt grumbled playfully.

"What?" Sebastian mocked since he was, actually, showing off. "You told me to move the quarter and I did. See…" Sebastian pointed to the coin twirling in the air, "it's moving."

"At least you didn't rip it to shreds this time," Kurt said, calling the coin to him with a blink of his eyes and a fire of his own. "We need it to do the laundry." Kurt grabbed the coin from the air when it came to him, pressing it into his palm and feeling the heat it held – Sebastian's heat. He put the coin deep into his pocket. There was no way it would find itself stuck into the coin slot of a common, every day laundry machine. "You know, I think you're better at this than even me."

"Never," Sebastian said, picking Kurt up from behind and spinning him around, letting the blue glow on his skin call to the flame in Kurt until Kurt's porcelain complexion glowed with the fire. "The power belongs to you. I'm just borrowing it. No one can control it the way that you do."

Kurt's whole body warmed at Sebastian's words, and another war began within him. He didn't want to feel pride in Sebastian's praise. Pride was a deadly sin, but he couldn't help himself. He smiled sadly at a loss for his own feelings, and not only the ones about Sebastian and the love that they felt for each other, but for his entire life – the people he'd lost, the teachings he thought he needed to survive, his future which was still so incredibly uncertain.

One new and confusing thing about not living at the temple with the priests was that Kurt and Sebastian felt free. Kurt had to admit that for once it felt nice not having to bow to ritual or set study times. They slept late, ate leftover pizza and cake for breakfast, sometimes lounging out in the sunlight on the balcony of their rented rooms and letting time drip away around them. They were playing at being adults, doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted though their lives, ironically enough, still revolved around service. Sebastian lived to serve and protect the Scion, and the Scion lived to serve and protect the world. After a while Kurt realized how much he had relied on the schedule the priests set and all the things that they did in preparation for the impending battle – preparing their souls to become worthy. Things he and Sebastian hadn't done since they left the temple.

Kurt wanted to feel happier, to forget about responsibility and duty and lose himself in the comfort of Sebastian's arms, but even as Sebastian twirled him around, spinning him out till he lost his balance and couldn't help but laugh out loud, his smile slipped and Sebastian noticed. Sebastian knew that a pain brewed somewhere in Kurt's heart; ever since they started sharing their deeper dreams and fantasies with one another he had felt it. Sebastian didn't call attention to it and when Kurt looked up into Sebastian's face his smile returned full-force, the shadow of whatever doubt lurked in his mind having passed. Sebastian smiled back and nipped at the tip of Kurt's nose to hear him laugh again. Sebastian shared in his laughter, but secretly he hoped his Scion would come to him with his concerns in time.

Night fell quickly and they spent it mostly in silence. After dinner, Sebastian read from an intimidatingly large volume of druidic rites and spells; worn and embossed leather cover full to bursting with fragile, waxed pages as thin as onion skin. Kurt puttered about the kitchen with a granite mortar and pestle, grinding the herbs and floral inks they used to decorate Kurt's chest with protective spells and runes, except this time it was Kurt's turn to paint the symbols on Sebastian's skin, and the more he thought about it, the more his heart raced and his body trembled.

It was all he could do to focus on not setting the powdered mixture on fire.

Kurt showered first while Sebastian added oils to the ground powder and spoke the necessary blessings over it; blessings Kurt had never been taught but which Sebastian promised to teach him. While Sebastian showered, Kurt looked over the cheat sheet Sebastian had made for him. Kurt shook his head in quiet awe. Sebastian drew all these strange symbols from memory. Kurt knew a few of them, but he was at a loss for the rest, and as for the translation…

It was humbling. If not for the circumstances of his birth, he would be useless in this endeavor. Kurt wouldn't even know where to begin to learn all of this. He spoke French and he read Latin; if he squinted his eyes and tilted his head he could muddle through reading Greek, but these were all scribbles and gobbledygook. Sebastian learned this, spent most of his young life learning this, in the hopes of someday protecting him. Sure all the young acolytes learned it, but he remembered Sebastian at the temple, remembered the long hours they spent together out in the courtyard under the willow tree, or sitting in his cell, when Sebastian would read and read and study and read like the world depended on him devouring and memorizing every word, every intonation.

Kurt looked around him, at the room where he sat, a step up from their first little rat shack of a motel room definitely, but still musty and shabby, obviously not the sort of place an ex-trust fund baby would choose to live.

It seemed like such a waste, such a shame. Sebastian worked so hard, studied so much, for this? To live here? To spend every second running away from shadows in the dark and those same people that vowed to protect him from them?

Still Sebastian studied, every second that he could, in an effort to keep Kurt safe at all times. It never ended for him, and he did his job well. The order should be proud that they produced such a competent priest.

But if the order ever found them, they would most likely kill Sebastian on sight for kidnapping the Scion.

Kurt had never wanted to stop being the Scion so much before, but for Sebastian's sake, he would give it all away.

He had to stop thinking that way. He needed strength or the moment Sebastian stepped naked out of the shower Kurt _would_ give it all away.

The bathroom door opened and Kurt walked around the bed, putting the piece of furniture between them. Sebastian had his towel tied around his waist and when he caught sight of Kurt standing nervously by the bed, he chuckled, misinterpreting the pallor on his face.

"Don't worry," he said with a gentle smirk. "You can't mess it up too badly. And if you do, I'll just shower again and we can start over."

Sebastian tossed Kurt a wet wash cloth, and Kurt broke from his stupor to catch it. Sebastian stared boldly into Kurt's eyes as he climbed on the mattress, loosening the knot on the side of the towel and draping it across his lap to make Kurt a little more comfortable.

Sebastian watched Kurt straddle his hips, settling himself slowly, taking heed of the towel on Sebastian's lap. Kurt laid the cheat sheet flat on the bed, and then reached for the paintbrush and the pot of ink, positioning everything where he could reach it and where the little pot wouldn't spill as he moved.

Kurt stalled for a moment, stuttering a few times before he could bring himself to commit to a spot on Sebastian's skin and start writing. When the paintbrush made contact with Sebastian's skin and Kurt swirled it deftly, branding Sebastian with the first mark, Sebastian almost moaned. He hadn't given Kurt enough credit during this process. How could Kurt endure this so patiently, so silently, when one touch sent Sebastian's mind whirling with thoughts of Kurt's body beneath him, whimpering, writhing, gasping with pleasure?

The paintbrush shook in Kurt's hands as he tried to carefully paint the elegant rune symbols on Sebastian's chest. Kurt tried his best not to be distracted by his beautiful body. Kurt had no problem whatsoever looking at him. Sebastian's body was a gift from the creator, and like his own it was blessed, but Kurt had a hard time thinking of the blessing beneath him without wanting to run his tongue over every inch of it. Try as Sebastian might, as much as he knew this was difficult for Kurt, he couldn't help the way his green eyes darkened when Kurt shifted down his body; or how his tongue swiped over his lower lip when Kurt bit his own in deep concentration, fighting to keep his hand steady. Sebastian wanted desperately to suck that lower lip into his mouth and kiss it, to make Kurt tremble more.

At some point between embarrassment at his body's reaction and striving for perfection, Kurt's eyes clouded over, and Sebastian knew that whatever had been bothering him earlier bothered him still, though he had yet to talk with Sebastian about it. Sebastian knew he should wait a day or two and give Kurt space to sort out his thoughts, but now that they seemed to share so many of those thoughts he didn't like it when Kurt put up walls between them. He was spoiled by the relationship they had, not just as priest to Scion, or friends even. Their relationship was something unique and special. It was all their own. They created it, and it existed only for them. Sebastian found that he didn't want Kurt's full disclosure; he needed it. The more that they shared of themselves with each other, the more they had gone from being two separate people to becoming a single entity.

They were one in their thoughts, in their feelings, and in Kurt's fire.

Theoretically, there was only one more thing they had yet to share.

"You know, it's been a while since I've taken a confession from you," Sebastian said, watching Kurt work on a particularly difficult symbol over his right flank. Kurt sighed when his hand slipped too far and he ruined the mark. He picked up the damp washcloth from where it lay beside his knee and wiped the ruin away with immense care so as not to wreck the rest. Sebastian's breath hitched at the delicate touch. "Why don't you tell me what's on your mind?"

"I…" Kurt wiped away the mark, relieved that he was able to leave the others untouched. "I don't really have anything to confess."

"I'm not saying that you do," Sebastian clarified. "But, it might help relieve some of the burden." Sebastian took Kurt's free hand and laced their fingers together, giving Kurt a connection to hold on to. "I know there's something on your mind…something you're not telling me…something you've blocked me from seeing." Kurt ducked his head, his cheeks coloring with shame. "Please, I can't help you if I don't know what it is."

Kurt gazed down at their joined hands and sighed. It was strange how they could be in bed together, a shirtless Kurt straddling Sebastian's mostly naked body and yet this point of contact, their hands with fingers twined together, felt so blissfully intimate.

"I want to get married," Kurt said, his voice barely a breath above a whisper. "I want to have children." Sebastian's eyes widened where he looked up at Kurt, and Kurt rolled his eyes. "Not today, of course, but someday, and I'm beginning to think that's not going to happen for me."

Sebastian brought Kurt's stained hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. He let his mouth linger there, brushing his lips over Kurt's skin, thinking about Kurt's confession.

"Kurt, if you were a regular human being, and you could marry anyone you wanted, would you?"

Kurt turned away for a moment, and when he tipped his face up to the ceiling Sebastian could see tears collecting beneath his eyes.

"Of course I would," Kurt whispered.

Sebastian waited a moment with Kurt's hand pressed against his mouth.

"Would you marry me?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt dropped his eyes to meet Sebastian's, his expression blank but his eyes glowing blue to mask the heartbreak within them.

"Of course I would."

Sebastian smiled, the grin of a man finally at peace with his place in the world.

"So, let's do it."

Kurt pulled his hand out of Sebastian's grasp, scuttling backward to remove himself from the sting of Sebastian's ridiculous idea.

"What…what the…what are you talking about?"

Sebastian sat up quickly and grabbed Kurt's wrist back, pulling Kurt toward him.

"Let's get hand-fasted."

Kurt stopped and stared, confused.

"Hand-fasted?"

"Yup." Sebastian wrapped an arm around Kurt's waist and held him steady to keep him from trying to get away before he finished. "We'll do it ourselves. We don't need to find someone to perform the ceremony. We don't need any witnesses. Just you and me and maybe God if he wants to come. What do you say?"

A small smile passed over Kurt's lips for a second and disappeared as his cheeks colored more.

"But, we wouldn't be able to…to consummate…"

"We don't have to," Sebastian assured him. "Historically hand-fasting has been used to pledge one person to another for all sorts of reasons, like a contract. The tying of the hands can symbolize the consummating of the marriage. It can be temporary, last a year and a day, last for all eternity…or last until the love lasts." Sebastian kissed Kurt's hand again gently. "How long do you think our love will last?"

Kurt dropped his head against Sebastian's shoulder.

"For all eternity."

Sebastian smiled.

"That's right, gorgeous," he said. "Besides, the ceremony is for us. Why does it need rules?" Sebastian chuckled. "How can rules even apply to us anymore? You're a magical holy weapon and I'm…" Sebastian's eyes shifted to the wall behind Kurt's shoulder before he answered, "I'm the _bastard_ son of a _bastard_ crime boss."

Kurt raised his head and eyed Sebastian's profile – set and strong and full of so much unresolved regret. Kurt reached out a hand and pulled Sebastian's eyes back toward his.

"You're a priest," Kurt said with reverence and respect. On anyone else's lips it would have sounded false, but on Kurt's it sounded like the highest honor ever bestowed to a mere human being.

"Priests answer to the higher power," Sebastian said. "They devote their lives to what's true and good. Their motives are selfless." Sebastian shook his head. "My motives never were. I'm no priest. Not like the kind you deserve."

Sebastian turned away again to face the wall.

"Tell me why you did it then?" Kurt pulled his hand from Sebastian's grasp and looped his arms over Sebastian's shoulders.

Sebastian smirked.

"You know why I did it."

"Tell me again?" Kurt asked, his smile shy, his hand twirling the brush in his hand behind Sebastian's neck. "Please?"

Sebastian fixed Kurt with a determined, unashamed stare.

"I did it because I knew I wanted to be with you," he admitted. "I knew I would do anything to keep you safe. I did it because being a priest was never my calling. You are."

Kurt rested his forehead against Sebastian's and sighed happily.

"Then you are the best protector I could have ever asked for," Kurt said, giggling with nerves when he noticed how close his mouth had come to Sebastian's, his lips lush and tempting and begging to be kissed.

Kurt leaned back a hair before he could persuade himself to indulge.

"And, yes, Sebastian. Yes, I will marry you."


End file.
